


To His Coy Mistress

by Suchsmallhands



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/F, Female James Potter, Female Peter Pettigrew, Female Remus Lupin, Female Sirius Black, MWPP, Poetry, They're all girls
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-21
Updated: 2019-10-15
Packaged: 2019-11-26 22:03:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 27,863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18186281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Suchsmallhands/pseuds/Suchsmallhands
Summary: Sirius gets a hold of Remus' book of poems and much ensues.





	1. Chapter 1

“Let me see that!” Sirius barked, bouncing on hands and knees upon Remus’ bed.

“Sirius!” Remus griped, attempting feebly to ward her off from her place leaning against the pillows at the headboard. Peter cackled maniacally as she did so often, she caused half as much trouble as James and Sirius together from just her talent at goading shenanigans along. James lounged at her own spot on the bed, laughing along.

“Oh, come on Moony, you’re being no fun.” She smiled that awful, devilish smile.

Here is what it is: James is being no help because with tests coming up Remus has dropped out of map making significantly to study and when Remus prioritizes her grades this gives Peter an out to do the same when in any other case James could bully her into using her animagus form to develop the map further. Peter is generally amused when Remus is put out, James has a vendetta against Remus’ academic success and is being complicit, and Sirius is just an awful headache quite like every other day.

Remus’ hand smushed against Sirius’ face she tried for a vindictive knee in the tit, but whether it worked or not is unclear because Sirius’ long arms managed to snatch the small book out of her outreached hand.

“Pads!” Remus growled, but Sirius sprang away spiritedly. She tumbled off the bed and examined the book gleefully.

“Pocket Book Of Poetry!” She made a face and James rolled her eyes.

“I thought you were studying Runes.” She sniped, Remus shot her a flat and unamused look. She leaned back with a great sigh as the three of them cackled like hounds and made great fun of her, Sirius reading out names of poems and snickering or detesting as she will.

“Oh, William Shakespeare!” Sirius’ eyes lit up mirthfully, “Even I know about him, most esteemed muggle. How distinguished of you, Remus.”

“William Shakespeare.” James drawled royally.

“Willy Shakes!” Said Peter to idiotic giggles all ‘round.  

“Read us some!” Peter piped up, and Remus rubbed her eyes with one hand because of course. Sometimes she thinks James and Sirius specifically rely on Peter to prompt nonsense. It’s not so bad, really, once the nonsense has gotten on in fact Remus obviously relishes in it. But she _was_ in the middle of _Ozymandias_ and it’s just not right.

“Do we want a show?” Sirius beamed mischievously, twisting from one to the other. Much encouragement from Remus’ bastard friends.

“ _Once_ more unto the breach dear friends, once more!” She threw her arm out gallantly as if holding a sword, threatening the structural integrity of Remus’ precious pocket book as she grappled it in her left hand and read haphazardly out of it. James stood on the bed and cast sparks about her with her wand. “Or close up the wall with our English dead!”

Sirius leapt around the room, giving her grand performance.

“But when the blast of war blows in our ears!” She snarled, “Then imitate the action of the _tiger!_ ” She leapt on Remus’ bed. Remus leaned her head against her hand, elbow propped by the pillows around her head. She raised a dour eyebrow as Sirius smiled down at her from where she stood at Remus’ feet.

“Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood! Disguise fair nature with hard favored rage!” And she continued as James cast encouraging charms to enhance the performance until she drew to the end, standing now on Peter’s bed while James cast imitations of fireworks around them.

“And _you_ good yeomen!” She pointed a finger at Peter, “who’s limbs were made in England, show us here! the _mettle_ of your pasture! Let us swear that you are worth your breeding, which I doubt not, for there is none of you so _mean_ and _base_ that hath not _noble luster in your eyes!_ ”

Her eyes gleamed crazily and her hands clenched in fists as James upped the pyrotechnics and Peter clapped along bewilderedly from the other end of the bed. Sirius was out and out roaring at this point, standing high on the bed as Remus watched with a dry smile and James crouched on the ground to get good angle, laughing along.

“I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips! _Straining_ upon the start! The game’s afoot!” She threw the book down – to an indignant noise from Remus – and grabbed the post of the bed with her hand, throwing her other arm out wide. “Follow your spirit and upon this charge cry ‘God for Harry, England, and Saint George!”

She threw her head back and threw up her closed fist, before the energy flopped out of her and she bowed comically, _thank you thank you,_ to them. She jumped off the bed and into James, tussling halfheartedly.

“And _that’s_ how you make Moony’s books interesting.”

“That was quite good, Pads.” James commended, pulling at her hair.

“I’m classically trained!”

Remus sighed comfortably from her bed, watching them for a moment. She had to give it to her, it was a good performance.

-

Sirius lifted the little pocket book from Remus’ person after that. Sure it was all fun and jest so to speak, but she was curious. And, like many things, it traced back to her stifled upbringing. She’d not had much introduction to muggle poets. In fact, while she had been given teaching in many of the most noble and most ancient magical literature, most of it had been historical and properly purist and focused on topics Walburga and Orion would approve of. So she nicked it.

She got quite wrapped up in it, tucking her nose in it at any time she got away from the others. Even she and James had to study, and between tests, quidditch, and Remus’ poetry book, the Marauders affairs had been quiet lately. Only the map making retained any time, and little at that, too.

She came upon the dormitory empty one day, save for Remus, lounging on her bed and taking notes from her texts.

“Moony.” Sirius smiled charmingly, eyes warm as she strolled to lean against her bed post.

“Pads.” Remus smiled back warmly, setting aside her notes for a second. Her amber eyes were tired and bagged. It hadn’t been a bad moon, but it had also only been four days since and Remus wasn’t giving much of a reprieve from her studying. “What’re you doing back here?”

“Skipped out of Potions.” She shrugged, “Didn’t have it with James or Peter and it’s one of my best subjects.”

Remus hummed and Sirius watched her subtly haggard eyes flicker down her body. They were both wearing the uniforms from under their school robes, white button ups and plain brown trousers. Sirius had rolled up the sleeves half because she knew it looked good.

“Haven’t seen enough of you, lately.” Sirius pouted.

“No.” Remus smiled and laughed a quite little breath. “I’m a bit slammed at the moment.”

“Mmm,” She lifts a perfect dark brow, “Tell me more of this slamming business.”

“Dog.” She said unamused with a flat look.

“Quite.” She laughed and sat on the bed next to her, leaning back on her hand. She watched Remus look up at her with eyes gently subdued by fatigue. But fatigue couldn’t muffle those barely noticeable strings of interest that passed between them. Remus’ eyes skittered over her face and where her black, silken hair fell over her crown and landed over her shoulder. The evening was falling and pale yellow light flowed over them, catching on Remus’ ghost pale scars on her face, lighting up the low and hungry creature in Sirius’ slate eyes.

Remus kept her sleeves down to her wrists always, to cover the scars so the other kids wouldn’t comment. She looked only too enticing now, her stomach rising and falling under her shirt, one hand resting on her diaphragm, reserved even in the lines of her reposed body.

Sirius reached into her pocket and removed the little book, holding it out to Remus. Her brow furrowed in curiosity, taking the book in hand.

“When did you get this?”

“Mm… a week ago.” She shrugged.

“I was looking for this.” Remus grumbled, frowning at her. “What did you want it for.”

“I don’t know. Curiosity?” Remus was flipping through the pages, “Wanted to see what you were reading.”

“Curiosity killed the cat. You switching to Ravenclaw now?” She grinned, chin tucked close to her chest as she thumbed through.

“Satisfaction brought him back. God no.” She wrinkled her nose, “A riddle every time I want to go to bed at night, how awful! Can you imagine having to have a debate with the Fat Lady when on the run from Filch.”

“Honestly, you’re right, it’s ridiculous. Do they enjoy that? Doesn’t help much trying to be quiet when sneaking around at night.” She looked up at her, “Did you enjoy it?”

Sirius blinked, opening her mouth. She was a bit distracted by the pesky little problem of arousal.

“Some of it I didn’t get. But some of it was good.”

Remus hummed, “Which ones?”

“Are you looking for another performance?” Remus huffed and smiled.

“You are quite good.”

It was that _I’m from the upper class_ voice she had. It was a bit slower and well enunciated. She picked up a lot of speech from Peter and Remus and Jamie, but she couldn’t any more abandon the accent she was raised with than they could.

Sirius flipped her hair back and settled more comfortable, picking up the book and sidling up closer to her side so that her hip brushed against her.

“I’ll read you this one” She flipped open the book and Remus smiled brightly, looking the part of the school girl crush. “Are you ready?”

“Go on.”

“Drink to me, only with thine eyes.” Sirius looked at her over the book in her hands, and Remus’ toes _twitched._

“And I will pledge with mine.” She murmured, and her voice was actually quieter than typical.

Remus’ fingers curled into the bedclothes.

“Or leave a kiss but in the cup.” Sirius spoke, and Remus already knew the poem which just made her anticipate every. Single. Word.

“And I’ll not look for wine.” Her voice lowered and she made eye contact again. Remus squeezed the comforter.

“The thirst that from the soul doth rise…” She went on, her voice dragging the sentence out just enough so that it scraped over her mind. “Doth ask a drink divine.” That rotten mouth quirked up knowingly. Remus cursed it – and again for making the word ‘thirst’ sound like that.

“But might I of Jove’s nectar sup, I would not change for thine.” She let her voice hum quietly over the rest of the poem, “I sent thee late a rosy wreath, not so much honouring thee as giving it a hope, that there it could not wither’d be. But thou thereon didst only breathe, and sent’st it back to me. Since when it grows and smells, I swear,” The briefest of pauses to glance at her, “Not of itself, but thee.”

Remus needed _air._ She sighed deeply and made an effort to retain a smooth stream of air.

“How was that?” She sat primly, book in her lap.

“Just… _dirty._ ”

Sirius barked her laugh and leaned over her a bit more so her hair hung between them.

“It’s all in the delivery,” she said. And she would have cut them both loose right there, her body was _hot_ , but Remus was one for the long game. She stopped Sirius with the book pressed lightly against her chest just as she made to close the distance.

“Let me try.” She said. Sirius’ eyes flickered with the kind of frustrated delight that Remus enjoyed getting from her. Sirius liked instant gratification, true, but Remus knew how to play games with her that she liked, too.

“This one makes me think of you.” She opened the book squarely between them, barring Sirius from lowering herself to press against her.

“Had we but world enough and time,” she rasped, “this coyness, lady, were no crime.”

Sirius swallowed and her brow showed light frustration.

“We would sit and think which way to walk, and pass our long love’s day. Thou by the Indian Gange’s side should’st rubies find, and I by the tide of Humber would complain.”

Sirius’ arms burned from leaning over her but she just couldn’t move, and honestly this wasn’t fair retaliation – at all. The awful slow rumble of Remus’ voice grated on every last reserve of patience Sirius had.

“I would love you ten years before the flood, and you should, if you please, refuse until the conversion of the Jews.” Remus met her eyes. Sirius’ brow twitched.

“My vegetable love should grow, vaster than empires, and more slow.” _God dammit._ “An hundred years should go to praise, thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze.” Remus looked up at these, and Sirius breathed out hushed.

“Two hundred to adore each breast…” Remus’ voice rasped over the quiet words and Sirius stopped breathing. “But thirty thousand to the rest.”

Sirius’ body shivered and she rocked a little and gripped the comforter.

“An age to every part, and the last age should show your heart.” Remus murmured and it didn’t sound so much like recitation at this point. “For lady, you deserve this state. Nor would I love at lower rate.”

Their eyes met and Sirius grit her teeth, thinking _FuckingPoetryFuckingMoony_ viciously in her mind.

“But at my back I always hear, Time’s winged chariot hurrying near,” Remus lowered her eyes to the book and read again, “And yonder all before us lie, deserts of vast eternity. Thy beauty shall no more be found, nor in thy marble vault shall sound, my echoing song. Then worms shall try that long preserved virginity, and your quaint honour turn to dust.”

 _Bullocks! Bullocks honour!_ Her jaw clenched.

“And into ashes all my lust. The grave’s a fine and private place, but none I think, do there embrace. Now therefore, while the youthful hue sits on thy skin like morning dew, and while thy willing soul transpires at every pore like instant fires, now let us sport us while we may. And now like amorous birds of prey, rather at once our time devour, than languish in this slow-chap’t power. Let us roll all our strength and all our sweetness up into one ball. And tear our pleasures with rough strife, thorough the iron gates of life. Thus, though we cannot make our sun stand still-“ she met her eyes, “yet we will make him run.”

Sirius crushed their bodies together, kissing her. The book made its way out from between their chests, discarded alongside the sheets of forgotten notes. Remus grabbed her by the raven hair and opened their mouths to each other, tasting those tongues that did so much dark work on each other before touching. She fisted her hair tightly, like she knew she liked, and Sirius worked on her own shirt buttons. Remus brought her free hand down to slide down the front of her neck and dip against her collar and chest and Sirius lost patience with the buttons and popped them off, there was always reparo.

Remus breathed deeply and splayed her hand across her chest as Sirius struggled and threw off her shirt, loosing her bra and throwing it to the side. Remus leaned up from her position and tugged her head back so she could give attention to her tits.

“Two hundred to each breast, yeah?” Sirius blurted out and that she could put a sentence together at all was proof of her constantly vibrating mind and overactive mouth.

“Shut up.” Remus sat up completely and let go of her hair to remove her shirt, with enough patience to get the job done while Sirius fumbled for her wand and cast the curtains shut around the bed just in case.

She just got her pants unbuttoned enough to shimmy them down her hips and Sirius unbuttoned her own and did the same. She returned to Remus’ lips and let her hands move happily around her sides and chest. Sirius pushed her down into the papers and they crinkled as the two moaned into each mouth, torsos pressed, sealed, together. Sirius was wet. And having Remus’ bare chest against her never failed to set her off.

This wouldn’t last long. They pushed hands into pants and met with heat and slick wetness, fingers moving fast over clits. Sirius’ mouth opened obscenely and Remus watched her moan. They rocked against each other and Remus tried to last just long enough to feel Sirius slow her thrusting and drop her head down, hair falling over Remus’ forehead, body loosening and laying in every pleasant way against hers before Remus squeezed her eyes shut and came too.

Sirius shifted into a more comfortable position and they lay right where they were for a while, pants half way down and breaths slowing.

Later, as Remus contemplated moving to get her shirt on, hand brushing through her hair, she asked, “How was that?”

Sirius laughed and thought for a second.

“Just… dirty.” They laughed, “Thought you’d never get to the end of that fucking poem.”

“I think that was rather the poet’s sentiment.” Remus chuckled.

She dressed and Sirius rolled onto her front and fell into a doze.

-

Sirius lay against her chest late at night. She crawled in when the others had all gone to bed. She liked to sleep here. Remus was closing her eyes to go to sleep when Sirius hummed against her chest, “Read one more for me?”

She sighed and sat up, dislodging Sirius and crawling to the end of the bed where her stuff lay scattered on her trunk. She grabbed the book and returned them to their places.

She whispered in the night, voice halting and moving at whatever pace she willed, “Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments… Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds. Or bends with the remover to remove. Oh no, it is an ever fixed mark. That looks on tempests and is never shaken. It is the star to every wandering bark, who’s worth’s unknown although his height be taken. Love’s not Time’s fool. Though rosy lips and cheeks within his bending sickle’s compass comes. Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks. But bears it out, even to the edge of doom. If this be error and upon me proved, I never writ, nor no man ever loved.”

She fell asleep with Sirius’ fingers brushing the corners of her mouth.

 

 


	2. How Did You Die

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> School is ending sort of soon. Everyone has fear and doubt.

 

Sirius found a way to make trouble out of everything. Remus knew this from eleven years old. She had a clever little way of weaponizing things that you wouldn’t think could be weaponized. Typically this entertained Remus, even though it _was_ bothersome when Remus wanted privacy and Sirius drug her into the spotlight of trouble with James. Peter didn’t mind occasionally being caught in the professor’s crosshairs, although she’d had to learn to stand up for herself lest James and Sirius use her as a scapegoat too many times for good will to be shared between all men. Remus for her part made it incredibly difficult for James or Sirius to shift the blame. She believed in sharing and mitigating damage or consequences as a Marauder, sure, but not like the two star asshats did – and James and Sirius were hard pressed to make her take the brunt of their own consequences.

Remus spent her daily life knowing that she harbored a secret. Not a secret that could be taken kindly, like the one about her being a skirt lifter. The kind of secret that made her life dangerous. The kind that made her prospects after Hogwarts look harder and harder as they approached, she only hoped that the professors at Hogwarts might spare her an ounce of help getting a job, not that it was their burden.

She had a registry number tattooed on the back of her neck. Sirius and James knew that her secrets played into the reasons that she stayed behind them when mischief was afoot, aside from the fact that she generally liked the privacy. But when it came down to the wire, if Sirius could escape the wrath of McGonagall, and it meant leaving Remus to the wolves so to speak, then she would.

She typically didn’t ask for forgiveness like she used to, a sort of manipulatively pitiful petition for Remus’ good graces. Near the end of sixth year, when the Incident occurred, Sirius seemed almost as shocked in the weeks afterward that she was capable of what she’d done as the rest of them. Even James hadn’t seen it coming, though it made sense in hindsight. She’d sort of stopped asking forgiveness for leaving Remus high and dry after that, treated her with a level of carefulness in mischief from then on in general.

She could weaponize almost anything, charm, wit, information, humor, all for her and James’ games. Even the things Remus thought she never would touch. Like her secret. That secret that had knit the four of them together so tightly, the beating heart at the center of their comradery, _she’s a werewolf._

After this, however, poetry showed itself near the end of seventh year as a form of supplication.

Remus had received a letter from an esteemed member of an organization which worked to defend the rights of the marginalized in the magical community. Somehow they’d gotten a hold of an essay she wrote for one of her classes about the societal position of vampires and what could be done about it. She’d received a perfect score for the effort.

They were in the great hall, owls just leaving out, and the Marauder’s watched Remus’ face turn red with discomfort. She never wanted anyone of importance to read the essay, it was only because the four of them lived in each other’s trunks that they’d read it themselves. She wanted control over her life. And people of importance having copies of an essay that made her a clear sympathizer with what most people saw as dark creatures did not make her feel in control. There’s a reason she was the only werewolf in their school. Seven grade levels and she was the only one, because dark creatures weren’t _supposed_ to be with society.

“Someone sent my essay to… how…” She felt hot.

James looked at Sirius and Remus caught the guilt in their eyes, though James’ guilt was secondary. She seemed to take Sirius’ burdens as half her own.

“ _Sirius._ ” Remus said, hands gripping the letter roughly. Sirius widened her eyes. “You didn’t.”

“I’m sorry!” She plead, sitting more tensely across the table from her.

“This was _not_ your place what were- I…” She was at a loss.

“The quality of mercy is not strained.” Sirius frowned earnestly and James cringed. “It droppeth as the gentle rain from Heaven upon the place beneath.”

Remus’ mouth stayed upon her eyes a frozen shock of incredulity. Peter put her hand to her forehead and said a prayer for Sirius’ hide.

“It is twice blest, it blesseth him that gives and him that takes,” Sirius soldier on with a sort of fearful determination as Remus waited for her wits to return to her. James gave a surprised face that said she was impressed that Sirius could recite that. Remus would know it was a flawless recitation.

Remus closed her eyes for a brief moment and gathered her temper under her control as it rolled furiously, her jaw twinging. She jerkily rose from the table and left and knew James would advice Sirius against following and that Sirius would oblige wisely.

After a day of Remus giving the silent treatment to her and Sirius sulking from the abrasion of it, James met her in the dorm room before Peter and Sirius came up from the common room.

“She was just trying to help.” James murmured.

“She’s _arrogant._ ” Remus met her eyes and James met them evenly. “She has never understood where the line is.”

And that’s the crux of it. They always knew Sirius didn’t understand where the boundary of mischief turned into something worse. It had just never been clear what that meant until The Prank that could have changed all of their lives and ended Severus’. The other three sort of knew silently that it had to do with the way she’d grown up, the way she changed during those first few years on the train back home, the caged look and the silences. Boundaries and limits, things most of them just knew, were probably confusing in the Most Noble and Ancient House of Black.

Remus glared into James’ eyes and James’ eyes gazed back at her so evenly. She had her flaws. One of them being that her anger at Snape had led her to step right up to toe the boundary line with Sirius when they’d bullied Severus in front of Lilly that day. But James was eerily balanced and in moments like these it showed. She didn’t flinch from Remus’ eyes like she should. She had a kindness that was steady on in moments of turmoil.

“She was wrong, I know, yes.” James murmured, “But she didn’t _really_ hurt anything, Moons.”

Remus grit her teeth and held her tongue, looking away at the window.

“We all know you’re worried about getting a job after school.” James said – the kind of words that were taboo to say aloud. Remus stared out the window. “We’re worried, too. She’s trying to solve the problem her way.”

“It’s not her problem to solve.” Remus gritted out carefully. She became more still the angrier she got, the control tightening as things got worse.

“It sort of feels like it.” James frowned. “We’re Marauders. I know it was just a silly name… But it’s not like I’m going to stop living out of Sirius’ pocket when we get out of school and you still have the moons. We’ve got to be there for that. We’re not exactly going anywhere after this, we’ve got to see each other get jobs and things, we may as well help.”

Remus looked at the Forbidden Forest as those words reminded her. She tried to resist them because it just couldn’t be, it had to be fantasy the way James dreamed for them both. But words like that were strong and weakened her.

“You can’t… change the world, James.” Remus said. She saw in her mind’s eye Sirius, _beautiful Sirius_.

What would they think when they watched her fail to succeed like they would do. And if they held fast, loyal to the end, could Remus watch them meet the hard edge of society that Remus had seen. Could she really watch the world deny them their fantasies of acceptance.

“No.” James’ brow furrowed, “But I took Sirius in when she needed it. If you can’t change the world you can make a place in it that’s different.”

Remus knew that this was a place where James’ stubbornness of will would never falter. Hard headed as Sirius. But quiet about it like Peter.

Remus breathed a few stifled breaths and blinked at James tiredly, confused and privately, somewhere deep deep down, glad that James wouldn’t back down and willing to follow her lead.

The door knob turned and stopped. Whoever was on the other side was pausing just a second. It was a way of knocking when you ran with a group that didn’t ever knock. By the time the door opened Remus had started ruffling through her bag for homework and James had leaned back on her hands as if idly lounging.

Peter came in followed by Sirius. Peter could be relied on for things like that. Being the first to enter the room when things were uncertain. Making things easier for Sirius.

They all lounged in the room as the sun went down, chatting, quietly doing homework, tossing Every Flavored Beans at open mouths. Sirius shying like a stray dog around Remus’ space.

They didn’t have very long left here. A few months. Remus didn’t know if they all thought about it like she did. James was smart and the kind of charming that would get her somewhere. Sirius was smart and reckless, willing to ask for things she shouldn’t dare ask for. Peter was average in her grades and that worried her. But she worked hard enough and she was willing to settle for whatever as long as she had a place in a group like theirs. And Remus? She’s a werewolf.

Years later Sirius would be as arrogant as only someone from money could be, or maybe it would just be her, and she’d tell Remus: You’re smart and you’re brave and you’re a good person, you just can’t give up! You can’t!

She’d say it like she could bully her into it, furious. And Remus would think, maybe… There had to be somewhere she could do good.

That evening, Remus savored. She was starting to more and more. There would come a time that none of them would ever be in this room again, maybe never even in Hogwarts again all together. These halls were mapped out, charted as their own.

As she lay in bed and they turned the lights out, Sirius sort of hovered unknowingly obstinate around her own bed while Remus lay in hers and read her poetry by the wandlight. Usually they chattered about poetry before bed, Sirius snarking about it or asking questions or listening silently with quiet breathing.  

Remus caught her eye after Sirius’ eleventh glance in her direction. She made a brief motion of invitation which Sirius capitalized on.

Sirius read the poems tonight, whispering to not bother the others.

_Did you tackle that trouble that came your way with a resolute heart and cheerful?_

They were going to need a new book soon. Remus looked at Sirius’ long fingers, her lips, her eyelashes blinking intermittently. Remus had been staring more and more as she got older, not blind to Sirius’ beauty just because they’d grown up together.

_Oh a trouble’s a ton or a trouble’s an ounce, or a trouble is what you make it. And it isn’t the fact that you’re hurt that counts but only how did you take it._

When they were done, Remus extinguished the light and rolled onto her side, Sirius curling against her back.

She whispered, before Sirius could start settling into sleep, “I can’t get married.”

She wasn’t at the point of saying _to you_ yet but they knew why it was being said.

“You’re a queer anyways, I didn’t think you were the marrying kind.” Sirius whispered.

Remus’ eyes stung with tears and she held her breath so Sirius couldn’t feel it change against her.

She let their feet touch under the blankets before falling asleep.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this listening to Let's Get Married covered by Mitski, I think it works well!


	3. Dover Beach

 

The lasts of Hogwarts were easier for Remus to take than she thought they’d be. If anything, it was the other girls who took the last moon harder than her.

Sirius and James carried matching frowns that evening leading up to the night and Remus lay in her bed raising an eyebrow at them as she finished up her homework and they moped around about it. They’d gotten as good at tracking the moons as Remus had. In her opinion that wasn’t really a good thing, but the girls had always been co-dependent and she assumed that they’d stop tracking the moons when they all left school and started having busy lives of their own anyways.

The one that surprised her more was Peter in fact. That night had been a good one, and the morning after hadn’t been so bad. Madame Pomfrey made brief comments about how docile the wolf had gotten and Remus couldn’t exactly tell her why. She had a routine with Pomfrey. After she transformed back into herself, Padfoot, Prongs, and Wormtail would leave and shut the door behind them. She’d get a wet nose on her bare skin somewhere and she’d be so worn thin from the transformation all she could do is lay on the floor panting and covered in burning hot skin, in the bed if she could make it up there before it started. Her skin would still be hot and red all over, but these days there weren’t so many lacerations. In those last couple of moments she’d sometimes get a glimpse of Prongs and lay staring up at her antlers, seeming so much bigger from human eyes. When Pomfrey came to get her she’d help her into a chair that floated wherever she pushed it and they’d go back to the nurse’s wing. Pomfrey got to work fixing what needed fixing but not after feeding her a potion that made those searing aches and pains numb until they were gone. She’d fallen asleep so many early mornings, dead tired from running all night and from the transformations, almost every morning her eyes drifted shut seeing Pomfrey leaning over her and tucking the blankets just so over her or running her magic over her body. This was always going to be one of the most trustworthy, noble women Remus would ever know. When she was awake on those mornings, she’d read the books that she’d brought from her dormitory down to the infirmary the night before so that she’d have them, or she’d do homework. Even the most painful mornings Remus knew she’d be looking back on with fondness. Pomfrey would be doing her morning work and the sun would be coming in through the window which she kept the shades open on at Remus’ request from back in first year. It had been six years and Madame Pomfrey opened those curtains every morning after the full moon and Remus slept right through the sun warming the bottom half of the bed. Madame Promfrey knew like no one else what it was like for Remus in the time before and after the moons, even the girls weren’t familiar with how to fix those first painful hours after like Pomfrey was. And most importantly, Madame Pomfrey was no nonsense and wouldn’t tell a living soul what Remus was, she could tell. She’d never wondered about that, and she was thankful for it.

Madame Promfrey opened the door to the infirmary that morning with a shawl wrapped around her shoulders. Remus watched from the bed she was in, the curtain left open.

“Isn’t it a little early for you lot?” She said in surprise. The girls gave bright smiles and started talking over each other to tell her their stories so she stepped out of their way and waved them in. “Only because she’s already awake, but you lot be quite now.”

Madame Pomfrey and the other three had an interesting agreement worked out between them as well. Even Sirius who looked on adults with wariness had a comradery with Pomfrey. They knew Pomfrey was going to let them in every morning because she wanted Remus to have friends more than she wanted her to have chocolate when she asked for it. They knew that Pomfrey kept a hawk’s eye on them for any mischief that could even think of disturbing Remus’ healing. They followed her rules and she let them in.

That morning they’d come early because it was the last moon. Seventeen was too old for them to be clambering at her bedside, they’d been doing the moons like this for so long that they waited for her to come back to the dorm at the end of the day these days. But it was the last moon and they wanted to celebrate. Sirius and James cracked jokes and laughed along with her and they whispered so as not to disturb Pomfrey’s morning.

Remus noticed Peter’s smiles falling faster than they normally did, noticed her contributing little to the conversation. Later on when breakfast came, Sirius and James chased each other out the door and Remus stopped her before she left.

“Pete?” She asked.

“Yeah?” Peter paused and touched her hands together, shuffling back to her side.

“You doing okay?” She asked.

“Sure, ‘course.” Peter nodded quickly and Remus gave her a wry look. Peter would divulge secrets less than any of them to the exception of Remus but that wasn’t saying much because Remus had professional life experience in keeping secrets.

“What?” Peter said, and swallowed even though her face was calm.

“You don’t seem okay.” Remus said, “You don’t have to tell me or anything, just wondering.”

“Yeah.” She shrugged those round shoulders, smiling a small little thing. “”M fine.”

“Okay.” Remus tilted her head, “Well, my back’s absolutely fucked at the moment but I can’t feel it because of those potions, thanks for asking, I don’t even want to know what she puts in those things.”

Peter laughed at that, finally making her plump face round with laughter. She sat back down on the chair next to the bed.

“Can I ask you a question?” She rubbed her thumb over her other thumb in her lap, fingernails painted a modest pink.

“No.” Remus smirked, Peter laughed a little and rolled her eyes. “What is it.”

“I was wondering what you’re gonna do about the moons after… after we graduate.” She said it and frowned a little as she got quiet. There was a little silence in the air that usually followed when they talked about her condition.

“I haven’t got a clue.” Remus twitched her shoulders in an imitation of a shrug, glancing over at the open door leading to where Pomfrey had gone. “I know they expect me to come back here for them. But I’m not looking forward to that.”

“Why not?” Peter asked, her voice low.

“Would you want to have to come back to Hogwarts every month just because you’re sick and you can’t get better?” Remus asked simply.

She frowned at that, “You’re not sick.”

Remus let it go and turned her head away for a moment to look away. Of course she was sick, or worse, it was obvious in the silence between them that she was and Peter just didn’t want to call it that.

“D’you think you’re gonna find somewhere else to transform?”

“Maybe, someday. There’s always the place my dad made for me at home. I’m considering that.” Peter showed her distaste for this idea on her face, “But I don’t know. I expect I’ll be right here next month.” She smiled humorously and patted the sheets with her fingers.

“Hm.” Peter frowned and her eyes betrayed the worry in her again. Remus watched them as they looked around the room and Peter was too distracted to notice her own expressions.

“You sure you’re alright.” Remus murmured.

“Yeah, I guess.” Peter nodded and then looked over at the grey floor away from Remus. It looked like she was just inspecting a curious detail on the flooring. Remus waited quietly and a few moments passed before Pete spoke again.

“Just not sure what we’re going to do about the moons when we leave…” She paused, “Sirius and James are so sure and confident about it all but… I don’t know. I think they don’t really get it sometimes, like… Just they don’t understand that we can’t all be like them, maybe.” She gave another pause and kept looking at that phantom distraction. “Like, I don’t know how we’re gonna do the moons together. Is Pomfrey going to let us all come back here to be with you, then? I mean, that sounds stupid, I guess she will. But I guess I just wonder you know… about other things too. Like how we’re all gonna hang out. And what job I’m gonna get and what job they’re gonna get.” She shifted around a lot as she said that last sentence. Remus was quiet and watched Peter’s hands twine fingers and rub vigorously without rhythm.

“Seems like the world’s gonna end sometimes, huh.” Remus rasped, voice breaking the silence. Peter almost looked over at her and then looked away again. She nodded, said yeah with a quiet voice.

Remus would choose not to tell Peter what she was really thinking in her mind, which was all the same. She tried what it would be like to voice the weak optimism in her.

“What about a job at Saint Mungos?” Remus asked.

“What?” Peter turned her face to her and met her eyes. Her cheeks were blotchy red.

“I was looking into it the other day. You can be a nursing assistant without any extra special grades or training. You don’t do any medical stuff except what the hospital trains you to do, so it’s no big deal. It’s not a ton of money but you can move up. Or you could work at a desk job at the ministry… There’s a lot of stuff like that. But I think you’d do good in a hospital. You wouldn’t get bored, you know. I know you can get bored easy.”

Peter’s face sort of twisted a tiny bit in confusion and she thought about that for a moment.

“Have you talked to anyone about what you could do after school, Pete?” Remus asked quietly.

“Well… I did the meeting with the professor like everyone else did.” She said, her hand splayed on her knee and her shoulders slumping a little like she’d already lost her confidence.

“Maybe you should talk to Professor McGonagall about it again. Or even Madame Pomfrey.” She suggested.

Peter nodded a little, “Yeah.”

“It doesn’t have to work out right away either, you know. Doesn’t even have to work out as fast as everyone else.” _Fast as them._ She thought.

“Yeah, I guess so.” Peter nodded and put her hands together in her lap. “You know, I wouldn’t care if we all came here for the moons.”

Remus smiled softly. “Sure, Wormtail.”

“I think I might miss breakfast.” She said and smiled.

“You’re a rat, Peter, I wouldn’t worry about it.” She laughed and made an escape.

That year, James and Sirius and Peter and Remus practiced joint spell casting in the dormitory before the last day of school. While the student body filed out of the great hall to go to the train, over their heads high in the air was a load of glittering lights that rained down golden confetti that got in absolutely everyone’s things.

_FAREWELL FROM MOONY WORMTAIL PADFOOT AND PRONGS_

The professors didn’t try to make it go away, Dumbledore gave it a whimsical smile.

Remus walked along through the crowed with everyone, smiling through the golden confetti and watching Sirius and James walk ahead with their arms around each other’s shoulders.

They all went home for a week, celebrating with their families. But they’d made a plan together, like a promise to be more than the moons that had tied them together. They all gathered at Jame’s house after a week and spent the night there before going to the beach. Remus caught up again with Fleamont and Euphemia. She took a moment to ask Peter if she’d talked to anyone about her future again. Peter gave a sort of vaguely nauseous but confident nod and smiled a bit, she was looking into healing. Remus smiled and looked forward, nodding subtly.

She herself would never imagine a life working in medicine. Hospital visits in her youth had been isolated and hostile experiences with protocol that didn’t keep up with what was needed for treating werewolf transformations. The government didn’t mandate and most serious careers didn’t allow for repetitive breaks from work for the moons. If they did Remus might get medical training just for the chance to make things easier for young werewolves who needed help.

Sirius and James were still figuring out what they wanted to do but they weren’t worried they were excited and Fleamont and Euphemia could hardly interfere with all their deliberation. One week it was the ministry, the aurors, researching defense against the dark arts, quidditch for James, _please Prongs, I can’t sit through any more quidditch no matter how brilliant you are_ , and even social work for Sirius.

At the beach they didn’t talk about any of this, and even Lilly came along. He had gotten to see the good side of Prongs at some point, much to everyone’s bewilderment. They had gotten used to his presence pretty quickly and each of them even had their own easy friendships with him. Sirius and Lilly even started giving James trouble in mischief, they were both quick as whips.

They camped on the beach and Remus didn’t care that it was summer she was freezing so she didn’t swim much. But when she did, she stripped to a bikini and saw Lilly quietly taking note of her scars. It was just one more piece of the puzzle that he was going to put together at some point, probably before James got around to asking Remus for the go ahead to tell him.

Remus couldn’t help the joy in her stomach that day and night at the beach. They built a fire. She let Sirius hang on her shoulders and hold her hand and Lilly didn’t spare a single sour look at them. He was good at heart and it was clear, maybe that’s why Jamie could chase him so hard. It reminded Remus of how Euphemia and Fleamont had taken Sirius’ shameless sin in stride.

When the fire was just glowing embers and the sky overhead was black with stars, Sirius abandoned the pretense of her own bedroll and curled up with Remus.

“I brought the book.” She whispered right in her ear to be heard over the sound of the ocean.

“What?” Remus looked at her, “To the _beach?”_

Sirius laughed and rushed to defend herself and crawled to her bag and got the book, crawling back to where Remus swatted at her and made her brush the sand off before they gave up the ghost and she got in sandy ass and all.

Sirius lay with her head pillowed on Remus’ arm and Remus soaked up the heat of her pressed against her side. The wind pulled at Remus’ wavy tufts of hair, threatening to carry away every word from Sirius’ mouth but Remus listened as Sirius read by the glow of the dying coals.

“The sea is calm tonight. The tide is full, the moon lies fair…” Sirius started and Remus listened. The sea was so much louder than she expected it and it almost silenced her words, but Remus tilted her head close and could hear. The waves protected the poem from the others, leaving it for their ears only.

Remus’ eyes closed and the breeze brushed her face as she drifted off listening.

“Come to the window, sweet is the night air.” She loved that voice more and more these days.

_Ah, love let us be true to one another. For the world which seems to lie before us like a land of dreams, so various, so beautiful, so new, hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light. Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain. And we are here as on a darkling plain, swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight. Where ignorant armies clash by night._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If any of you have any poems that you love, please feel free to share them in the comments or on my tumblr @thisshipsailsitselff!


	4. Sonnet XVIII

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> nsfw

Sirius smiled wickedly at the letter in her hand.

_Mum and Dad out for the evening, ‘till after sundown._

_Remus_

She was wearing a _skirt._ Sirius did not wear skirts. Reason being The Most Noble and Ancient House of etc., etc., she didn’t wear them. That’s exactly why she was going to use one to surprise Remus. There was no way in hell she was using James and Lilly’s floo power because no one would see her in this thing but Remus, therefore she apparated with a crack and popped into the Lupin’s living room.

A smile spread on her face as she realized the place was empty and the parents were well and gone – thank god. She liked this place. She’d spent a lot of time crowding the Lupins house to spend time with Remus who hadn’t moved out yet. Hope Lupin knew about them, Sirius could see it and knew she wasn’t a threat. Lyall knew about them, he wasn’t going to address it which was a bad sign but Sirius wasn’t too concerned about him.

Sirius stalked like a dog on the hunt, she’d forgotten to put down the letter she’d gotten from Remus before she apparated and it was still in her hand. Their owl probably hadn’t even made it back home yet.

She paused at the bottom of the stair case in the living room and listened. She wasn’t upstairs but in the kitchen, just down the hall. Sirius padded on still bare feet down the hall, stepping softly over the rug and touching her hand to the doorway as she eased into the threshold. There was Remus, back to her and stirring a still steaming cup of tea. To the right wall of the kitchen was a screen door leading to the outside, in front of Remus was a window over the sink letting in the light. Sirius could tell it was cold outside, her bare legs were chilled. She watched for just a moment and listened to the tinkling of the spoon against the cup, the steam rising above Remus’ form.

“Pads?” Remus called loudly as if to the living room, her head tilting a bit to hear the sound of her arrival. Their time Hogwarts had made them quite observant and Remus was always unexpectedly aware. Sirius smiled to herself, she stood taller just hearing that voice.

Remus paused as if sensing her presence and turned around with a frown on her face. She started just a bit at the sight of her and then looked at the skirt and her eyes widened. Sirius crossed her arms and smiled with amusement. Remus’ hand still rested on the countertop and her other arm hung at her side stationary, eyes still caught on where her thighs emerged from her skirt.

Sirius stood there, leaning against the doorframe, enjoying it until Remus blinked and looked up at her. Her brow twitched as if irked.

“Morning, Sirius.” She said. She was wearing light cotton jumper and trousers.

Sirius tilted her head and brushed her hand across her skirt absently.

“Is it still morning?” She almost laughed.

“Not quite noon yet.” Remus said with a quite even voice and her eyes stayed on hers. Sirius ate her self-control up like nectar and wanted to get past it right this second. She left the threshold and put her hands behind her back, fingers lacing delicately, padded forward at a leisure pace. Remus shifted as if not sure if she would step back or forward.

“You wearing skirts now?” Remus asked, hand still welded to the counter top.

“Thought I’d try it out.” She did chuckle, “How do you like it?”

She quirked an eyebrow and playfully twirled once.

“Is it for me.” Remus murmured, now looking more in control of herself as if she’d gotten over the initial vision.

“I hope so.” Sirius murmured. She stilled her movements and gave Remus the _business look._ Sirius, for all the feeling of the black skirt brushing her thighs and the air moving freely under it, couldn’t do much other than gaze at Remus’ face. Hungry eyes still calm, tawny waves a mess of hair falling around her ears, scars tracing the lines of that face she knows so well.

Remus looked up at the ceiling as if asking for patience from God. Sirius wanted to tell her she’s an eighteen year old gay kid she may as well put down those gloves.

Sirius reached out and closed her fingers slowly around the wrist of her hand still at the counter and unwelded it easily. Remus switched their grip and gently grabbed her wrist in return, stopping their hands and finally stepping away from the counter.

Sirius felt her other hand brush the hem of her shirt, running her fingers around the bottom and resting on her hip. Sirius was just an inch or so taller than Remus and she loved the way their bodies lined up. Even with these barren inches between them.

Remus was looking down at her body, and Sirius pressed her hip into her hand just so. Remus took her hand away and lowered it while they both watched her fingers touch her thigh. It was well below her skirt line but Sirius sighed and her mouth ghosted a smile. Her leg inched forward into her fingers. Remus’ palm slid up along her leg and brushed the hem of the skirt, feeling the way it lay over her hand. Sirius could hear the sound each of their breaths.

Remus brushed her hands over the top of the skirt, rubbing up over the top of her thigh and her hip. Sirius grit her teeth in irritation and shuffled to communicate it to her. Remus’ lips quirked up in just the hint of a smile, her chest lowering in an amused exhale. Her thumb rubbed the place where her leg and her crotch met.

“Are you just going to touch my fucking skirt?” Sirius growled and Remus smiled in return, running her hand around the skirt and grabbing the hem.

“You’re so improper.” Remus looked at her and shook her head, their faces inches apart but far enough that Sirius could see that humor in the amber eyes and the smile bearing the edges of teeth, the details were really jumping out at the moment.

“I wore underwear.” Sirius quipped. Remus’ brows raised and she huffed a laugh.

“That so?”

“Yeah, you’d know if you’d put your hand up my fucking skirt.”

Remus finally let go of her wrist and put her hand to her head and put their mouths together to kiss her, wasting no time touching their tongues and tasting her. She put her other hand to her back and relished the way Sirius pressed the line of them together so that she could feel her through their clothes. She curled her fingertips against her back, then slid her flattened palm down and grabbed her ass through that skirt. Sirius exhaled heavily at that, maybe it was relief.

She grabbed at her thigh and hitched her hand up to the very top, dragging the skirt up so that she could feel the aforementioned panties. Her lips stuttered for a moment at the pure pleasure of it. This skin was almost like uncharted territory, skin she’d touched many times before was now coveted ground from the shade of her skirt.

She turned them gently until they were switched in position and their kiss slowed and lightened as they both followed the feel of Remus’ hand sliding across her thigh and sliding snuggly between her legs. Sirius’ body tensed, wondering what in God’s name she’d do to her next, probably just what Remus thought on a daily basis. She was wound incredibly tight and she wanted Remus to give her relief.

Remus’ fingers rubbed slowly over her pussy through the fabric and Sirius was so tense she could hardly move for it, not able to quite keep up with kissing.

“Moons.” She whispered under breath without thinking, pressing forward and Remus rubbed her fingers along the edges of the panties, probably enjoying the feel of her at her own leisure. Sirius squeezed her eyes shut and tried to be patient, patient, patient.

“You’re wet.” Remus whispered. Sirius gripped the counter hard and felt each second move past as Remus tucked her hand into the panties finally and dipped down and it became so much easier to be still as her fingers smoothed down through her pubic hair and over the softest folds of her. From there Sirius sighed and Remus seemed to give it to her out of gratitude, dipping her fingers into the warmth and giving generous strokes over her clit. She rubbed down to her hole and smoothed her other hand over her dark hair and kissed her through her finger pressing slow and easy into her and drawing back to add another. Sirius could feel the mischief gone from her, she followed every little move Remus made.

Remus’ hands came to her hips and slid her underwear down her legs in one smooth motion. Sirius relied on the counter for support when Remus got on her knees and nudged her legs apart. She had to close her eyes or look up at the ceiling because she might come from the sight of it.

She lasted long enough for Remus to hike her skirt up high and put her mouth on her. Sirius moaned and leaned hard into the counter, thighs twinging to frame her face in perfect gratitude. Remus sucked at her clit and used her fingers to press into her hole. Sirius looked down at her, eyes locked to the sight, her skirt laying over her face. Her head tilted back and she lost control of her voice until she came.

Remus stayed buried in her skirt until she finished.

Sirius managed to catch the sight of her coming out from her skirt, lips red, hair tussled. Sirius closed her eyes and panted.

“That good?” Remus asked as if they were discussing plans for lunch.

She breathed for a moment and said, “Fuck.”

Remus smiled a slick mouthed smile and got off her knees, wrapping her arms around her back and kissing her lips. Sirius followed her back to her bedroom and spotted her panties in Remus’ hand. She’d picked them up off the ground when she’d gotten up. Sirius smiled dazedly.

They lay in bed for a while and talked about James and Lilly and Remus’ parents. Sirius lived in a flat with James and they both were getting a job soon at the ministry in the defense department. James was going to wait until Lilly asked her to get married but she wanted to ask herself and Sirius was acting as cheerleader. James had decided that if he didn’t ask her in a week, she was going to pop the question. Remus and Sirius placed bets. Sirius bet on James not being able to wait, Remus bet on her waiting. Lilly spent most of his time at James’ place these days and Sirius knew they wanted to move in together. She told Remus as if it was almost a secret, how happy she’d been the other day that James was with him. They’d all watched James pine after Lilly in a longshot of romance for a few good years before it ever looked like it would work but Sirius confided in her, she was glad to see James get what she wanted.

It seemed like James often got what she wanted and Remus understood, it felt good still.

Sirius argued a little bit about Remus taking the job with the agency that helped dark creatures get on their feet, the one that had read her paper and wanted her help. Remus felt the job was asking for trouble. She let that sleeping dog lie for the moment.

A bit later and Sirius was on her front, legs spread just so with Remus’ fingers rubbing on her pussy. She was spent after a few rounds of this and able to make idle comments with her eyes lazily closed while Remus leaned over her.

“Should’ve brought your poetry book back with me, I still have it.” Her voice muffled slightly.

“You want to read now?” She hummed, rubbing her clit. Sirius shifted her hips to give good access to it and blurted, “Sure.”

“I can do that.”

“What?”

“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” Sirius almost started asking questions but got distracted by relishing the fingers now sliding in.

“Thou art more lovely and more temperate.” Sirius’ eyes blinked open in surprise, Remus still leaning her head on her hand propped up by her elbow. “Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, and summer’s lease hath all too short a date.”

Sirius couldn’t _believe_ she was getting off on this. She was soaking her hand.

“Sometime too hot the eye of Heaven shines and often is his gold complexion dimmed.” Remus’ voice rasped in the texture only she had, probably an effect of the month transformations or the stress of them but it sounded like _Remus_ to her. “And every fair from fair sometime declines, by chance, or nature’s changing course untrimmed.”

She paused for a few seconds and pressed her fingers in just perfectly and Sirius moaned in the quiet and pressed back.

“But thy eternal summer shall not fade.” Remus said more quietly and Sirius felt her lean down against her back and brush her nose into her hair. “Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st. Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade. When in eternal lines to time thou growest.”

Sirius kept her breathing measured so she could hear and couldn’t even force out _I’m gonna come_ for to hear her voice.

“So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, so long lives this and this gives life to thee.” She said into her shoulder and Sirius took just a second to hear her voice and she was coming while Remus slowed her fingers while her pussy squeezed them like she was learning that she liked. She moaned with her face in the blankets and her legs squeezing tight and hips rolling until the last of it was done and Remus leaned back to rest her hand on her back.

“ _Why_ do you have that memorized.” Sirius panted, turning to rest her head so she could see her face.

“It’s Shakespeare, it’s pretty famous.” Remus shrugged, smiling. Sirius rolled her eyes.

“Fucking Shakespeare.” Remus laughed.


	5. Life Sculpture

 

Tonight was the first moon since they’d graduated that they were spending it somewhere other than at Hogwarts. Sirius was little concerned, about everything with the exception of the morning after. Madame Pomfrey knew a lot more about medicine than Sirius or James or Peter combined. Lilly knew about things now, Remus had mentioned it off hand to James that she didn’t mind and James of course had immediately told him (he’d not been surprised). James told Sirius in confidentiality that she knew Lilly would accept Remus but that if he hadn’t, she wouldn’t have stayed with him. Sirius had taken a moment of pause to process this but decided it was what she would have expected from her in the end anyway.

Technically werewolf transformations were regulated by the Ministry. Sirius had done research on it when Remus had told her that bit of information after a moon at Hogwarts. It was true, werewolves couldn’t simply decide to do their transformations anywhere. Their homes, hospitals, and a facility run by the Department for the Control and Regulations of Magical Creatures were the only really legal options. Hogwarts was an exception that no one questioned because of Dumbledore. The problem James and Sirius discovered were these: transformations at home, or the Lupin’s, were going to be tightly confined and they knew the wolf would do badly with that. The hospital would never happen if any of them had anything to do about it. They wanted to get Remus out of the Shrieking Shack just to prove to her that she could be free.

So they found some very cold and isolated forest and made a plan.

“If you get caught the Ministry would imprison you.” Remus had said to them, that same look in her eyes of maturity no one should have to have at this age, not quite tired but excruciatingly realistic. “If not for aiding a dark creature then for being illegal animagi.”

“Oh, Remus,” Sirius rolled her eyes, “This is not essentially different than before. We know.”

This attitude never satisfied Remus.

“It’s a little more illegal, Moony.” James said, understanding eyes behind her glasses. “But it will probably be fine. The mostly likely case is that no one will find us and we’ll be back home in the morning safe and sound.”

Sirius leaned against the doorway to the small living room in their flat where James and Remus sat, one on the couch, one on the coffee table.

“What if someone were camping?” Remus glared at James and didn’t even deign to look at Sirius. “Or researching in the woods?”

Sirius was always more reckless about danger so Remus didn’t bother arguing with her. James would at least listen although her insistence on optimism was reckless in its own way.

“I mean… It’s the boreal forest.” James shrugged. Remus shook her head and rubbed her forehead. Sirius would support James. However, she’d made a big mistake in the past and it was one of the few times she thought she’d really lost her found family. She wasn’t going to speak up about this and the three of them knew what held her tongue now.

“I could kill someone.” Remus said quietly and looked at James for a few moments. James stared back.

“I know.”

Remus looked away and breathed deeply.

“I don’t know right now.” She said. James stood up and put a hand on her shoulder, patting her.

“Take your time.” She said and hooked an arm around Sirius’ stubborn posture, and they went outside to talk while Sirius smoked.

They talked about a lot of things. Lilly had practically moved into James’ room and they were planning their wedding. Sirius was spending so much time in the Lupin’s house that Remus had taken to sleeping in Sirius’ room at the flat just to get out of Lyall and Hope’s hair. This wasn’t Sirius’ plan but it working well in her opinion.

The flat was crowded but they figured when James and Lilly inevitably decided to have a kid – because James had mothered them all in their time and it was a matter of time before she decided to add to her big happy family – at that time Lilly and James would find a house to move into and Sirius planned to absolutely wrangle Remus into living with her whether she could afford rent or not.

James got all of the details from Sirius on her second cigarette about Remus. She’d been working at a desk in a muggle library just for money. She enjoyed it but expected to lose the job over the moons. Sirius and James were starting training as aurors. Sirius and James talked about what to do about Remus. _She’ll kill us if we try to meddle, Pads._ And, _she’ll just have to get right over it won’t she?_ Sirius was not nearly as gentle as James when it came to Remus. Money had been a privilege that James and Sirius had both been born into, Sirius more than all of them combined, and she knew it changed the way she looked at things but she wasn’t about to let Remus give up.

“She just has to get established.” Sirius snapped, flicking the ash off her cigarette harder than necessary. “She needs to get her ass to the job that’s waiting for her with that association for aiding dark creatures and then she’ll have something to say for herself when she gets a job she actually wants like researching fucking insects or some boring shit.”

“There’s got to be a place for her. People who’re willing to work with her.” James murmured.

“There is.” Sirius growled quietly. “We’ve just got to look for it.”

That was a fortnight or so before the moon. The night came and Remus had accepted the idea. She’d gone to Pomfrey and told her she would be spending the moon at home. It was a quiet conversation in the infirmary that had housed her so many mornings. Pomfrey had held her head high while she listened. If it were up to Remus, she would tell her everything, but she knew what she did with the girls was illegal in more than one way. It seemed like Pomfrey knew something of the nature of it, though. It was in the silences and those eyes. She didn’t know what it was between her and the other girls but she knew it was something.

“It’s about time you started learning how to take care of yourself after your transformations.” Pomfrey had said, “You won’t always have someone like me around.”

So she explained things to her, the basics of what she’d always done for her. She wrote things down and they talked for a long time about it. She seemed to suggest briefly that if she had ‘a friend’ around she could show her how to cast healing magic and which potions to give. She copied pages of healing spells and recipes for potions she’d tailored to Remus’ needs.

On the full moon James and Sirius and Peter and she gathered up in the flat and apparated. They laughed at the struggle of erecting a tent, even a magical one. They cast protective spells, cloaked the grounds in stealth. Sirius and James even took brooms they’d brought in their bags to survey the woods. It was empty. The forest was in summertime, but even so this far north was chill at night.

The hours of the falling sun were wilder than they usually were. Not in a way thrilled Sirius but made her feel flighty and on edge. Remus had been slow and tense all day but at dusk her eyes became more sharp and hollow, glinting amber in the sun that slid through the trees. Her muscles stayed tense and she talked less. Sirius stayed with her sitting in the grass outside the tent even though she felt jumpy from the sight of Remus. James shifted early and lingered at the edge of their camp as if standing sentry.

Peter shifted after the sun had set and crawled through the grass and scurried up to hold onto James’ fur around her shoulders and neck when James lowered her great head for her.

It really was like the wolf was in Remus as a caged animal through the month, a separate entity. There was no answer to this because no one studied werewolves seriously. Remus said it felt that way. Sirius knew it felt that way as well. Privately, both of them didn’t believe the wolf was a separate animal in her. They believed it was dark magic and more Remus than anything else. Remus would rather it not be her.

Sirius stayed because things were weird and when things were weird she got in closer, squeezing tighter even if it made things worse. She knew Remus was the opposite.

The sky was darkening and Sirius and Remus sat in the grass silently for a few minutes, feeling somewhat private with Wormtail and Prongs on the edge of the camp. Sirius caught sight of Remus’ hands held like talons, clawing at her legs. She reached over even though it seemed she really ought not to and grabbed her hand.

Remus didn’t move but stopped breathing at the touch. Sirius saw something impatient, hard and cold in her eyes glint at the touch, but Remus relaxed her hand. It was actually surprising.

“You’re tense.” Sirius said almost silently.

“This is weird.” Remus said back and even her voice sounded different. Sirius grit her teeth against the chills on her skin. She _wasn’t_ afraid of her, not even unnerved by her. She never had been before, she’d seen Remus transform before a few times, she’d run with her every month, she’d seen Remus push down an anger that rivaled any of her own. She’d even fought Moony before, with Prongs there to ensure they didn’t get too close to the school. So no, she willed the bumps on her arm to go down because she loved Remus enough to put her life on that love.

“Yeah, it is.” Sirius said and tremble that passed over Remus from the pain that began to grow in her body made the bumps on her skin go away.

“Remus?” Sirius asked. Remus let out a held breath and winced at the ache in her bones.

“Yeah.” She rasped.

“I love you.” This made a sort of cynical smile pull at her lips and a quiet chuckle huff from her.

“You guys going to watch me change?” Remus asked, voice strained.

“Not going to cover my eyes.” Sirius said, leaving her hand where it covered hers. Silence ticked past. “We’ve seen it before, you know.”

“Yeah, on accident.” She said and her eyes slipped closed as she breathed shallowly through the pain that racked up to the speed of the darkening air.

“Well, whatever.” Sirius said arrogantly. Remus’ eyes opened in mild pain, looking at her. She looked away and thought for a moment.

“No one else would willingly watch this.” She said out loud. Sirius didn’t have anything to say to that. They all watched for different reasons. James was slightly crazy and but mostly she did what she would do for her friends. Peter wanted a place to belong and she’d see it if she had to. Sirius had seen worse.

They sat quietly for a few more minutes.

“I love you, too.” Remus said with the last moments she knew she’d be able to speak. Sirius brushed her thumb over her skin in response. All this time she’d been watching Remus’ face.

Remus started showing the pain as the moon rose and Prongs and Wormtail were hidden in the trees as if giving her space. Sirius got up when the sweat started on her skin and shifted to the big dog. She loped away from her and started pacing the grass but kept from whining. Remus gasped through the pain and shed her shirt and pants, ending up laying in the grass. Padfoot stayed in the small clearing the whole time even though it was a truly grotesque thing to see a wolf come from the skin of a woman. The wolf would lay there for a few moments still in pain itself before the full light of the moon blessed the pain away from its cursed body and Moony stumbled to her feet and got her grace about her on the way to sniffing Padfoot. They greeted each other and the rest of the night was spent chasing down miles of isolated woods and sprinting after animals and discovering new land.

That morning was another milestone in their sisterhood. Prongs had the presence of mind to herd them back to camp. The inside of the tent was bigger than the outside and warm. They got Remus to the bed and gave her the potions for pain. James muttered about how they would get better at the healing spells in time and Remus thanked Merlin for the foggy feeling of the potion numbing the pain. James and Peter left them together in the tent to go say good morning to Lilly. Peter went home to enjoy the sleep coming her way.

Sirius read the spells and laid next to Remus in bed waiting for her to fall asleep. She was engrossed in them, already wanting to get to her wand to practice. Remus lay still and rested her hand on her stomach. The light of the rising sun was coloring the canvas of the tent bright yellow and the air inside glowed warmly with it. The waking birds sang around them.

“I bet you brought the book.” Remus whispered and Sirius looked up from the spells.

“I did.” She nodded. Remus smiled tiredly and her eyes blinked closed exhaustedly.

“You should put those away.” She said gently. So she did and crawled back into the bed with the book.

“What do you want to hear?” Sirius asked her, laying against the pillows next to her. Remus shook her head and lifted her fingers.

So Sirius read.

“Chisel in hand stood a sculptor boy with his marble block before him. And his eyes lit up with a smile of joy, as an angel dream passed o’er him. He carved the dream on that shapeless stone, with many a sharp incision. With heaven’s own light the sculpture shown – he’d caught that angel vision… Children of life are we as we stand with our lives uncarved before us. Waiting the hour when at God’s command, our life dream should pass o’er us.”

_If we carve it then on the yielding stone,_

_With many a sharp incision,_

_Its Heavenly beauty shall be our own, -_

_Our lives, that angel-vision._


	6. The Passionate Shepherd To His Love

 

One day, Sirius came back to the flat with James where Remus was sitting at the little table they’d pushed up next to the window with a book in her lap. She was curled up in a comfortable but wonky position in the chair, legs leaning against the table. The sun streaming through the window to warm her like she liked. A few of her scars cast tiny shadows on her skin. She had one thumb held to her teeth where she picked at the cuticles as she held the book open with one hand. A small furrow in her brow. Her trousers rolled up, socks still on.

She looked up at the sound of their laughter, smiling in welcome. Jamie ruffled Sirius’ hair and kissed her cheek before ducking into the kitchen to make some freaky athletic healthy food.

“Moony!” Sirius jogged up to her and grabbed her face to smoosh their lips together. Remus made a surprised _mmph_ and allowed the treatment. She blinked as Sirius pulled back. It had been a few days since they’d had the chance to see each other and she let her eyes catch on Sirius’ gorgeous face. Her hair was so dark it absorbed the light that flowed into it, but it had a sheen that followed the flow of it back into the place where she’d stuck her wand into it.

“You hungry?” Sirius asked but Remus had gotten distracted by the vision of her again. It really had been a few days. Sirius had a different body type than her or James or Peter. Peter was plump and soft, Remus was thin and made of angles. James was always happy on the pitch and in recent years she’d turned into a bit of fitness fanatic. She had a strong frame, shoulders and arms that reflected her work outs. Sirius didn’t have nearly the patience to do anything but join James occasionally. She had softness and angles in spades, all in the right places. She was fit but Remus had grown up with her and that body was _lover_ but also _friend, pack, family, home._

“Um, sure,” Remus caught up, sitting up straighter and marking the page to close the book.

“I’ll help Jamie fix something up and we can catch up?” Sirius asked.

“Sure, sounds good.” Remus nodded and her eyes caught a redness and a mark on her bicep just below her sleeve. “What’s that?” She frowned.

Sirius looked down at the arm and looked back up with a evaluating look. She didn’t answer just held her arm out to Remus. Remus leaned forward and put a hand on her elbow to turn her bicep out.

Her brows raised and her eyes widened slightly. It was a tattoo of the moon and nothing more, in just about the shape it should be right now. She looked at it for a few more silent moments and sat back in the chair, her hand resting on the table. Her eyes were shifting with her thoughts for a moment.

Sirius let her arm fall back to its place.

“It’s magical.” She said quietly, “Changes with the moon.”

“Why would you do that?” Remus asked, brow quirking in confusion. Sirius frowned, her chin lifting up just a fraction in a dignified defiance.

“There’s nothing wrong with it. You always know where the moon is, I know you can feel it. The rest of us have to keep checking to keep track and, for your information, it’s annoying. This is far easier.” She looked down at Remus almost scathingly and Remus exhaled quietly at the hilarity of it. If she thought about it too long, she hated the moon. Here Sirius was with a tattoo, the first one she’d ever gotten and Remus would know, of the moon. The moon and its magic was going to kill Remus prematurely, twenty years or more before James or Sirius would die of old age.

“Don’t hate it.” Sirius said softer now. She gave Remus a supplicant look. Remus looked at her eyes and her shoulders drooped.

“You’re such a prat, Pads.” She laughed under her breath as if the conversation had taken energy out of her, maybe it had. She was poor, eighteen, and a werewolf, she was easily wearied. She leaned her head against her hand and Sirius shuffled forward a bit to brush her hand against her arm.

Remus hooked her finger into her belt loop and pulled her forward, Sirius slid into her lap and looped her arm around her shoulders. She lifted her face to press their lips together. Sirius curved toward her and bent into her form like ice melting, Remus could feel it. She lifted a hand to brush her cheek.

Sirius was _busy._ She’d talk if there was nothing else to do, make trouble if talking wasn’t enough. But Remus could feel the quiet that settled in her when they kissed, as if this was enough to occupy her mind.

“Was this Prongs’ idea?” Remus mumbled, pulling back to look at her with her brows furrowed.

“All mine.” Sirius grinned. She wouldn’t be denied her credit. “But she held my hand the whole time.”

Remus rolled her eyes which meant she found that funny. “She supports your wildest dreams, she does.”

Sirius quirked a brow. “Someone has to.”

Remus was surprised by that. Sirius kissed her sluggish mouth and left her lap to go cook with Prongs. Remus sat in her chair wondering at the tattoo. At her best friends and her luck. She thinks maybe it’s because her condition had given them something. They’d been so young when they’d met, friendship followed in the most thoughtless way, the way it does for little kids. They’d been so young when they’d found out about her they’d become illegal animagi without even really knowing exactly how illegal it would be when they got older and never told anyone about it. Every moon they’d spent with her breaking rules not just for the thrill of it but because they had _fun_ doing what they did in the woods. She’d knit them together with exactly the thing that tore her apart.

She’d gotten family out of it much like Sirius had, though. Maybe she could let go of some of the control, she thought, as she sat there at the table and gazed sightlessly at the book. Maybe she could listen to Sirius and her ideas and see what came of them. She wasn’t getting anywhere special with her library appointment.

She sighed and ruffled in her bag for a pencil to write down a reminder for herself to find that letter she’d preserved and perhaps draft a reply.

 

Sirius had a sort of fever about it once she’d gotten one and now she had a set of antlers that exactly matched the shape and point number of Prongs’ on her left flank over her ribs and just below her breast. She was considering a new one already.

She was laying in Remus’ bed with her at the Lupins’. It was late and Sirius was going to sleep after a long day at training with Jamie. She was telling her about her day and smoking a cigarette that she really wasn’t supposed to be smoking in the house but Remus didn’t mind it and Hope and Lyall likely wouldn’t notice just one.

James and Sirius were both talented and auror training was hard but they were rising to the challenge. James was naturally quick with a wand and Sirius was raised by the Blacks, she’d been given a personal tutor at a young age who taught her how to use the not so nice spells. James dueled with her for practice and they were getting to be evenly matched now, which meant a lot. Sirius was learning control from James, she’d need it because the aurors viewed her impulsivity as her biggest liability. James agreed and worried about it.

Remus, James, and Sirius were all quick with a wand and it had served them well. But in the very few truly honest fights they’d gotten into in Hogwarts, Remus had seen how well trained Sirius was. It wasn’t a naturally happened upon talent. She’d gotten into a duel with Bellatrix who had purposefully instigated a fight with Sirius by jinxing Peter. Sirius had just run away from home and Bellatrix was vengeful. Remus had still been anticipating the build up to a fight, hesitating along with James, by the time Sirius had cast the first hex. It was like a car wreck, in a second the corridor had been relatively clear and with the slightest mistake at high speed Sirius had turned on Bellatrix like a dog on a kill. It went so fast James and Remus were still figuring out how to get in and help without hitting Sirius on accident when McGonagall appeared and cast a spell that forced them away from each other and in the next disarmed them. Sirius would have returned to the fight right there in front of McGonagall, unlike Bellatrix who was far more calculated, had James not grabbed her robes.

Remus and James both took note that day that Bellatrix had blood dripping down the side of her face.

Remus could image how wonderful she’d be and murmured to Sirius about being careful and making sure she always came home safe.  

Earlier that evening, Sirius had eaten left overs of dinner with Hope at the table and Remus had smiled at the sight.

They pulled the blankets up higher and Sirius sighed comfortably.

“Been thinking about this poem a lot lately.” Sirius hummed tiredly.

“Oh yeah?” Remus hummed, taking a brief drag of the cigarette herself and passing it back to her fingers as Sirius leaned against her side and nodded. “S’it in my book?”

“Yeah.” Sirius shuffled a bit more comfortably and Remus leaned to pick the book from the bedside table. Sirius took a last drag and traded Remus for the book. Remus put the cigarette out on a conjured ash tray while Sirius flipped to the right page.

“Come live with me and be my love, and we will all the pleasure prove that valleys, groves, hills, and fields, woods, or steepy mountain yields…”

_…and we will sit upon the rocks, seeing the shepherds feed their flocks… and I will make thee beds of roses, and a thousand fragrant posies… a gown made of the finest wool which from our pretty lambs we pull… a belt of straw and ivy buds, with coral clasps and amber studs…_

_“_ The shepherd’s swain shall dance and sing, for thy delight each May morning. If these delights thy mind may move; then live with me and be my love.”

She didn’t say another word and Remus lay awake for a bit when Sirius had fallen asleep with her head on her chest.


	7. Renascence

 

Sirius lay on the ground in the grass.

She could see the sky through her eyes, fringed by the tips of the wavering treetops. The sky was pale blue and the forest was for the most part quiet aside from the occasional birds twittering to one another. The place where the tent usually stood during full moons was vacate and there was no trace that a group of four kids gathered here each moon, still clung together.

The sun was actually very high, perhaps they were far enough north that it had a hard time setting in the summer. Today it was bright. Insects occasionally bounded from grass blades near her prone form.

She didn’t think about anything for a while. Eventually she began humming Billie Holiday _I’ll Be Seeing You._

Sirius had tracked Regulus down by owl. She typically told James every vacant thought that passed her mind but she hadn’t told her about this one. This was one of those plans that felt distinctly _irresponsible._ She was familiar with this odd feeling. She got it before she did something that some part of her knew Jamie would probably protest. It was a sort of quiet in the mind replaced by a low buzz of energy. She was going to do it and deliberately without letting anyone know about it.

_So there they were are the cafe._

_Regulus looked the heir she was supposed to have been. She stood there in the empty courtyard before the glass cafe storefront. The sun was setting and Sirius felt the muscles in her body tense like they remembered life at Grimmuald Place. Regulus’ face was unreadable. Sirius had never been able to hide her thoughts from her face like Regulus had._

_“Regulus.” Sirius said. Sister, she thought._

_“Sirius.” She said back, her brow twinging inward to break that stone face._

_She didn’t know what to say to break the silence and eventually Regulus did, but it was a choice to politely fill the quiet. Regulus would outlast Sirius in a silent treatment contest easily._

_“What did you call us to meet here for.” Regulus said. Sirius marveled at the utter regality of the controlled look to her face, her eyes. Her head held perfectly high, she looked every part the holier than thou queen detached from lowly squabbles._

_Sirius would always be the squabble. That’s why she’d gotten away just as much as her hatred for her family’s practices. She was who she was and her mother and father made to snuff it out, aside from the fact that Sirius would defend half-bloods._

_“I had things I needed to talk about.” Sirius answered truthfully. Regulus’ face relaxed in exasperation. Probably because this was Sirius who’d been there from the first breath. Held her as a baby. Been her first and only real playmate. Her older sister who never minded. The white sheep of the Black family._

_She could let the face of perfection fall for a moment in front of her. Siblings are strange like that. It was about the same face she’d make if Sirius said she couldn’t be the dragon because she wanted to be the dragon._

_“Sit then. But don’t expect the world.” Regulus murmured. They sat at the table and Sirius mirrored her perfect poster in remembrance of that high society, subconscious._

_“The world.” Sirius raised an incredulous brow._

_“I’m not here to be reformed.” Regulus said, “And you do expect the world.”_

_And they talked._

_“Where are you living, then.” Regulus asked, eyes so quietly detached although Sirius knew that something more was behind that easy mask. She’d seen it in youth. She didn’t know what went on in that funny head of course, though._

_“With James and Lily.” Sirius said._

_“James was successful with that venture then, was she.” Regulus said ever placid._

_“She was.” Sirius smiled warmly. “They’ve gotten married. Lilly sort of shacked up with her and now they’re looking for a house of their own.”_

_“Finally separating from James’ hip, then.”_

_“I should hope not.” Sirius gave her a dog like wrinkle of her nose in a glare to even suggest such a thing. “Remus is moving in. Other wise I’d be lonely.” She frowned at the thought._

_“Needy.” Regulus looked away across the streets and an odd and easy amusement colored her eyes. “You’re still running with the other one as well?”_

_“Remus and I are together.” Sirius crossed her arms. Regulus quirked a look in response, corners of her mouth twitched down and brows up for a flicker._

_“Family.” Regulus said. The word hung between them like they hadn’t been on purpose words. Regulus just as much unsure of what to do with them as Sirius. Sirius swallowed the ache in her throat._

_“Yes.” She paused, “Chosen family… but they chose me, too.”_

_Regulus’ face became even less reflective at that which Sirius took to mean something must be being thought in that hidden head._

_“James and you are like sisters.” Regulus said very quietly. These are secret words for her. The Blacks wouldn’t say those words. They’d never speak their minds. Regulus was giving more than Sirius could have expected from her._

_“We do take after each other.” Sirius smiled because she couldn’t help it over James Potter._

_She waited for a long time in the silence until Regulus opened her mouth silently thinking over her coming words._

_“What do you take after from us?” Regulus asked and looked back to her. Her eyes more open now._

_Sirius couldn’t think of an answer to that question. It was one of those thoughts, a question, that Sirius just didn’t think over. Those thoughts lay in the land of no reprieve. Those were the unpondered questions. Why don’t my parents love me like they should. Am I right or were they right. Am I anything like them?_

_“We all look alike.” Sirius finally spit out. “Inbreeding.”_

_Regulus gave her a flat look as if her words were tasteless._

_“What do you take after from the family?” Sirius bit back irritably. Regulus sighed delicately and tilted her face away to look into the darkening streets._

_“I don’t know.” She said. “I know I got father and you got mother.”_

_“I got mother.” Sirius repeated with raw incredulity._

_“Sure.” Regulus looked back at her mildly and quite beautifully in a softer more reserved sense. “You can’t keep your outbursts to yourself. Perhaps she taught it to you through all the discipline attempts. Father on the other hand let her do all the talking and hardly ever spoke. You’re mum I’m dad. If you got any thing from him it was the absence of presence in my life.”_

_Sirius grit her teeth and looked away while she managed the vibration stinging her body._

_“Fuck you.”_

_“My point.” Regulus shrugged._

_“Fuck off.” Sirius growled at her from across the table, words beginning steadily. “If you and dad are alike it’s because neither of you open your mouths unless it’s to disappoint me. I miss you, Reg. I wanted you to come with me always, not rot away in that supremacist cult. Our family are horrible people. You’re a part of an organization which would have me and everyone I love slaughtered. I wanted to pull you out of that cesspit with my bare hands but you were too stupid and cowardly to do it, I know you thought about it. I know you don’t like what they do, I’ve seen it on your face. I missed you and I love you enough to have called you here today. Just admitting that out loud takes more courage than you’ve ever displayed plainly and that doesn’t count for whatever kind of courage you think it takes to follow those psychopaths with a shut mouth. Grow a fucking spine, Regulus.”_

_Regulus was quiet for long enough that Sirius would feel shame for having not defended herself. When she eventually spoke she said, “You’re right where you belong.”_

_Sirius didn’t respond and they were quiet. Regulus eventually announced their meeting was over. Sirius stood and took a step toward Regulus when she stood, speaking firmly._

_“I came here to tell you that I’m still here. I know you were younger than me and it was hard to break away with me being older and I know I fended for myself before I thought about you. But I never meant to abandon you. I’m still here.”_

_Regulus let that hang for a moment._

_“Whenever I decide on that spine, hm?” She hummed. Sirius smirked. They said goodbye and cracked away from the cobble stones._

So here she lay and she sighed. She’d tell James all about it when she’d gotten over it.

She remembered the poem she’d read more than once. She’d never read it aloud so she tried now, hushed on a breathy susurrus.

“The world stands out on either side, no wider than the heart is wide. Above the world is stretched the sky. No higher than the soul is high…”

_The heart can push the sea and land_

_Farther away on either hand;_

_The soul can split the sky in two,_

_And let the face of God shine through._

_But East and West will pinch the heart_

_That cannot keep them pushed apart;_

_And he whose soul is flat –_

_The sky will cave in on him by and by._


	8. I Shall Not Pass This Way Again

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Self effacing Remus is so god damn over done and this character type for Remus is so goddamn over done but I had to get mine in of course. Thanks be to the collective efforts of writers everywhere who give this character the chance at being well rounded as they should be.

James and Remus leaned against a ragged fence in fields behind Godric’s Hollow. They watched as Sirius and Lilly played a sparring game with each other. The sun beamed high and cool as it does it in the earliest days of summer after the first patchy wave of heat has come and gone over the country and surrendered for now to spring.

Remus chewed intermittently at a pencil in her hand, a recent journal article in her left hand. She was distracted wholly by it, the edges of the pages curling much like her tawny tufts of hair in the breeze. James hadn’t said much next to her for a while.

“What’ve you got there?” James grunted, tipping her chin to the article and watching the practice between Sirius and Lilly, the arrant shouts between the two on the air.

Remus hummed and took the pencil from her teeth, “S’a… journal report on recent, uh… Recent laws in the States for regulations of dark creatures.”

“And?” James propped her elbow on the fence between them and leaned her cheek on her fist, grinning handsomely at her. Remus laughed under breath, thumb rubbing along the gnarled pencil line.

“The Americans are deranged,” Remus rubbed her brow and shifted in her lean against the fence, smiling thoughtlessly as she read along.

“Would you be better off there? With their laws?” James asked. Remus looked up and pressed her lips in thought.

“Mmm… probably not.” Remus watched Sirius for a moment. “The thing is they’ve no sense of propriety so… I’d not have to hide quite as much and there’d be more social circles for me to be in, more, sort of… niches in society. But they’d not be good ones. It would be a poor way, and any bastard half a mind could easily jump me without consequences. They don’t take kindly to werewolves any differently than we do. It would just be less hiding. Just different.” She shrugged and looked at James, no line of discomfort on her face.

James breathed in and out deeply and hummed, turning her head on her fist to watch the duel. Sirius was faster than Lilly by a stretched second. She was also more experienced in combat and dark magic than Lilly. However, as is no surprise, Lilly has a far calmer mind and it balances them. Especially now as Sirius is particularly careless today.

“Heard a nice chap at the cafe gave you trouble today.” James said.

“Mmm.” Remus murmured, “Saw me pick up a silver coffee spoon… It was just a passing comment, nothing real.”

“Sirius said she about started a fight over it.” James leaned with all the languor of a well worn farmer on a summer day, her voice rumbling on steady as it mostly does. This is what typically brings Remus to speak so easily around her. It’s sometimes as if she can say anything and James will just hum and quirk a brow. Of course, Remus knows this woman can light up Gryffindor tower in as many things that pop and scream – at the crack of dawn, why James – and the look on Jamie’s face in those moments is simply devilish. None the less; she contains multitudes.

“Sure did.” Remus nodded and stretched her lungs on a hefty sigh, watching the sparring as well. She knew the almost flipped throw of Sirius’ wand arm well, frustrated Sirius who seems to be petulantly demanding the world _recognize_ that she was pissed off. “She never thinks twice.”

“Certainly not.” James murmured, “I got that somewhere ‘round fourth year. Realized she’d actually do just about anything I put her up to and not ask why. Made me think a little bit before I schemed.” She chuckled.

“That was you _thinking?_ ” James laughed at that.

“Maybe not all the time.”

 _“_ Ah.” Remus nodded and laughed, thumbing through the article again.

“Was she right to get in a fight over it though?” James asked after a moment of silence. “Would I have gotten in a fight over it?”

Remus didn’t look up, “’Course not.”

“Seems like you don’t think anything’s worth fighting over, things like that.” James’ body made a bit of a more alert line. James could read in her body when she meant business. “I’ve seen some pretty nasty remarks you don’t react to.”

Remus thinks back to the cafe yesterday evening. They were outside and Sirius was standing with that still set to her body, facing the man who’d made the remark who was now standing still as if waiting to see what she’d do. Remus had gotten to her feet and put an arm on Sirius’ left forearm, table still trembling from being bumped when she stood up, cups and plates clattering still. _We’re in public._ She’d spoken before anything could start, still hunched over a bit of the table. Shuffled up to stand up properly, yanked on Sirius’ arm until she’d turned her back on the man. A strong hand that had taken. A firm _Sit_ hadn’t quite worked until the man had gone from the place.

“What’d you want me to do?” Remus almost laughed, an incredulous tone to her voice, “Start throwing curses?”

“We- No, it’s just- I don’t know… You don’t blink at it. I’ve literally seen you carry on reading when Snape said that… shit back in school. Like you’re not even angry. Doesn’t it make you angry? Or embarrassed even?” James spoke lowly but earnestly. No one really on this earth but James would ask these questions or could possibly have this conversation with Remus.

Remus smiled or something like that down at the pages and huffed in amusement, “ _’What is the shame that clothes the skin to the nameless horror that lives within?’”_

“Don’t – do that.” James bit out roughly. Remus looked up. She’d forgotten the conversation enough to forget where James’ line of tolerance lay.

“James…” Remus folded the article and let it rest in her hand, looking out at the trees to the left of the spar, sighing as her head shook just a bit.

“You better not let Sirius hear you saying shit like that.” James muttered, “She’ll lose her goddamn head.”

Remus looked back at her, “If I got into every fight Sirius wanted me to get into I’d not make it to sun-up tomorrow. It’s really another one of those privileged thoughts you both love having. Even if I could survive taking on every bastard who hates werewolves, which I most certainly cannot, it wouldn’t change anything. You know that, what on earth do you want?”

“I want you to at least _seem_ like you _disagree_ for God’s sake.” James frowned stubbornly, “What’s wrong with that – I’m sure that’s what’s got Sirius so fucking furious today as well.”

Remus shook her head and hardly restrained an eye roll. After a moment she spoke up.

“If you could snap your fingers and make it tomorrow, every werewolf in this country had the same rights you do, could do everything you do, would you?”

“Of course I would.” James snapped back. It hardened a ball of irritation in Remus’ belly but she should have seen that response coming ten miles off. “I can’t believe you’d even say that, you deserve every right I have!”

“If any mistake is made on a full moon someone’s life could be ruined, James, if they got away alive. That could be you, or Lilly. They’re only people nine nights out of ten but on one of those nights they’re not people.”

James looked at her with a nauseating hardness that reminded Remus that James and Sirius were of the same blood, not to be forgotten.

“You’re not that stupid.” James growled evenly, “You’re reasonable, stop acting like that. Werewolves are containable on the full moon, accidents are rare. You know the fucking numbers. The majority of werewolf victims, murders or bites, are intentional and premeditated. If society cared about you they could easily create regulations that could safely control the moons, if they did that they could bring werewolves into society properly, they could probably have come up with that potion they’re talking about – the fucking sedative – already perfected it. Werewolves would be _less_ of a danger if they were properly regulated instead of left to live in the fucking woods. I don’t even know why you’re… saying that shit about yourself.”

She was quiet for a second and Remus knew better than to press the silence, “You’re smart, Remus. I’ve heard you talk about how it should be done, you know how it should be. It’s not even logical how it’s done now.”

They stayed quiet for a while and Remus felt angry because she actually couldn’t quite rationalize why she was in opposition against James’ position. She could remember herself saying all James has said and more, the ways the world could behave that would easily coexist with werewolves.

“What the fuck is it, Moony?” James shook her head irritably and looked at her, still leaned against the fence.

“I don’t know.” Remus muttered and James’ jaw twinged. Quietly they waited. “I don’t know, James. I just… I know what it feels like to be me. Sometimes… I don’t know, fuck, I want to lock it away as much as they do. It’s just different when you’re on this side of it.” She grit her teeth and they watched the duel as Lilly talked to Sirius instructionally and they took off again, Sirius hitting hard and Lilly defending well. “You don’t know what its like to want to kill people you love. Next month you’re not going to want to murder Pads or Lilly. I am. Maybe it’s not _me_ but it’s still me. I can still remember… what it felt like to see Severus at the end of that tunnel. To smell both of you through the door. I could remember the way the wolf felt when I woke up in the morning.”

_I was going to take that door down. I would have if it were any normal door. That morning I could still feel the furious joy in my own stomach, the same the wolf had felt at the scent of you both. The stomach rolling purity of the urge. Like butterflies. It was euphoric, not like sating some simple blood lust or hunger, the mere chance of getting a hold of that prey. Like my only purpose._

Remus had never seen a human being with the wolf’s eyes before that night and she could remember it still.

“I’m sorry about that.” James muttered, “But that didn’t happen. I was there. And nine nights out of ten you’re Remus fucking Lupin, and you know on that tenth night you’re still Remus fucking Lupin so you gotta find a way to get the fuck over it. You don’t have to feel angry when people say mean things about you but you’ve got to stop all this bullshit. You’re breaking her fucking heart, it’s exhausting.”

Remus didn’t know what to say.

“You’re Remus fucking Lupin.” James muttered, “For fuck’s sake just act like it.”

After that day Remus leaned into her work and started coming home tired to Sirius in their apartment.

One night she lay after a quickie with Sirius in bed. Her eyes were closed and her warm skin cooled as she teetered on the edge of sleep.

Sirius lay lay with her head against the bed, watching over Remus’ chest as it rose and fell with slow breaths as they fell slower. Sirius reached forward and brushed her fingers along Remus’ face, making her twitch. Her finger smoothed rhythmically along her skin in a circuitous pattern.

She breathed as if she thought Remus couldn’t hear her, to herself.

“ _I shall not pass this way again. Although it bordered be with flowers, although I rest in fragrant bowers… And hear the singing of song birds winging to highest heaven their gladsome flight. Though moons are full and stars are bright… and winds and waves are softly sighing, while leafy trees make low replying.”_

_…Though rising suns their radiance throw on summer’s green and winter’s snow, in such a rare splendor that my heart would ache from scenes like these to part. Though beauties heighten and life-lights brighten and joys proceed from every pain. I shall not pass this way again…_

_…Oh God forgive, that now I live as if I might sometime return._


	9. nobody not even the rain

 

It was late afternoon, Sirius and Remus were expected at the Potter’s soon. Jamie was about to give birth at just about any moment, Sirius couldn’t be pried away from her.

_“Do you think Sirius quite approves of me?” Lilly groused, giving them both a curious stare as Sirius and James talked and Sirius went over multiple books on birthing and labor with her. James would crack a laugh every once in a while. Lilly and Remus stood in the kitchen watching their respective partners. “You’d think I should have asked her for Jamie’s hand in marriage first. I’m surprised Sirius was only the maid of honor and didn’t give her away as well. Look at the mothering… I didn’t know Sirius was the type.”_

_Remus sighed slowly and grunted. “I can’t say who’s mothering who at any given moment between those two.” Lilly chuckled under his breath. She thought back and remembered the night of the wedding. Sirius and James were tied at the wrists just like James and Lilly were. “Ah. She loves you, of course.”_

_“I know,” Lilly flapped his hand. Remus remembered coming home that night from the wedding and being thoroughly disrobed._

Sirius had been quite excitable while they waited for the baby to come. Remus couldn’t hardly touch the bed without being accosted by an _excitable_ Sirius. Here they lay now, Sirius already without her trousers, wearing a loose button down (Remus’) and no bra (she could tell). Remus was laying against the pillows, pretending to not notice anything going on past the work she was doing. The Creature’s Aid Association was doing well. They worked in partnership with the ministry. The ministry took their consultation and they did field work and paperwork to make sure ducks were in order. It was sometimes hell trying to get the ministry to hear them out, as they were interested mostly in meeting requirements and little more, but Remus was getting good at making a good case. In order to make a good case she _really_ needed to finish this report before they went to the Potter’s for dinner.

And yet. Sirius lay across the bed with her head down near the foot of it, legs draped across Remus’ body. Her foot twiddled where it rested against Remus’ diaphragm and tapped intermittently against Remus’ papers. She’d swat at the foot and tell her to knock it off and she would and then she’d do it again. Her other leg crossed both of Remus’ thighs and left her spread open a bit, panties in full view of Remus who was doggedly ignoring. They’d already had one off in the shower this morning before the day started. She scribbled a bit more.

“When are we moving into a new flat, Moony.” Sirius griped, flipping the pages of her book. _E. E. Cummings._

“Not today.” Remus mindlessly replied. Sirius grumbled.

“We’ve the money for it.”

“Mmm.” Remus grunted. Sirius lifted her head and even from the corner of her eyes, Remus could see the narrowing of those razor sharp eyes, the put out frown on her mouth.

“Remus.” Sirius barked.

“Sirius.” Remus murmured back lowly and slowly. Sirius should have heeded her tone but she smacked Remus’ papers with her foot. Remus grit her teeth and gathered back up her patience. She lowered the papers and gave Sirius a weathered look. Really there’s no telling why she didn’t put her foot down and brush her off sternly. It worked. Almost always. Maybe she was feeling friendly.

“Won’t you read to me.” Sirius grinned a sort of mean thing. She didn’t care she was being annoying.

“You can’t make me read Cummings.” Remus said. Sirius huffed indignantly.

“You stodgy prune. Cummings is good.” She glared.

“Why don’t you go to Jamie and Lil’s early, help them cook.” Remus said and lifted the papers again. Sirius lifted herself onto her elbows and stared at her incredulously.

“Have I lost all my charm to you?” Sirius quirked a brow. Remus rolled her eyes at her. Sirius flopped back onto her back.

“Sometimes I am alive because with me her alert treelike body sleeps,” Sirius said plainly. Remus flopped her work down sharply, _Sirius._

“Which I will feel slowly sharpening, becoming distinct with love slowly, who in my shoulder sinks sweetly teeth,” Remus rubbed her face irritably. “Until we shall attain the spring smelling intense, large, together colored instant.” 

“Sirius.” Remus grumbled under her breath and Sirius smiled widely at that.

“The moment pleasantly frightful.” Remus leaned her head back against the headboard, refusing to put her papers aside in case there was still a way to stop Sirius without having to do it herself.

“When, her mouth suddenly rising, wholly begins with mine fiercely to fool, and from my thighs which shrug and pant a murdering rain leapingly reaches the upward singular deepest flower which she carries in a gesture of her hips.”

Remus waited for the inevitable continuance. Sirius smiled serenely at the book and flipped the page, “Thoughts?”

“Drying.” Remus said flatly.

“ _Drying?”_ Sirius scoffed, “ _Wetting_ I say.”

“ _Murdering rain?”_ Remus turned her head to give her incredulously narrowed eyes.

“Oh, quite.” She sighed, smiling as she found it all funny. She rubbed her foot against Remus’ chest. Remus didn’t touch it.

“Pads, you’ll have to keep that new wave shit to yourself.” Remus muttered. She finally allowed the resignation into her tone. Sirius smiled so sharply to hear it.

“New wave?” Sirius cocked her head and gave Remus the _bless your simple heart_ tone of voice she did so well, “Modernist, Moony. Say it with me, modernist.”

Remus rolled her eyes and smiled despite herself, sighing and shaking her head. They both knew Remus knew what modernism was.

“That cubist shit is literally unintelligible. Don’t act like you really know what he’s saying.” Remus settled her papers on the bedside table, checking the time. They had an hour or so before dinner.

“It’s not about legibility, it’s about feeling!” Sirius sounded so innocent and guileless when she cared about something. “Oh of course, you like Shelley, Tennyson.”

Remus didn’t respond, giving her dry albeit amused gaze.

“Shelley is _not_ sexy, Remus.”

“Sirius!” Remus winced and groaned. Sirius threw her head back and barked her laugh. She recovered and, grinning her mad dog smile, curled up a bit to grab her hand draw it down the outside of her leg. Sirius grinned at her and held tight to her wrist as she pressed it against her thigh. Remus sighed out forlornly. She could hardly look at her. 

Sirius propped the book over her head and read with it in one hand, rubbing Remus’ hand slowly around her leg.

“Give the poor man one more chance, Moons.” Remus kept her fingers from twitching, nodding and humming in assent.

“I like my body when it is with your body.” Sirius hummed, and Moony could hear it in the tone of her voice how she liked this one. More than the last one certainly. “It is so quite a new thing. Muscles better and nerves more.”

Remus felt her hand shift so that she held onto her fingers and she pressed them against the line of her panties.

“I like your body. I like what it does, I like its hows.” Remus ran her fingers along the seam of the panties, felt Sirius relinquish her hold now that she was getting what she wanted, letting her fingers roam more freely. “I like to feel the spine of your body and its bones.” Sirius’ hips shifted minutely. “And the trembling – firm – smoothness and which I will again and again and again, kiss.” Her voice petered out and sighed through the sentence like Remus didn’t know how she did. Her fingers slipped under the hem and rubbed sweetly at the crease of her thigh and torso. “I like kissing this and that of you, I like…” Sirius’ breath paused and she grabbed the back of her hand, drawing it to the inside of her thighs and spreading her legs a bit. “Slowly stroking the shocking fuzz of your electric fur…” She sighed through her nose and closed her eyes when Remus pressed her palm up her thigh and brushed the backs of her fingers over her pussy. “And what is it comes over parting flesh… and eyes big love-crumbs.” Remus rolled her eyes and pressed firmly on her warm cunt, rubbing as Sirius’ legs closed in around her hand.

“And possibly I like the thrill of under me you so quite new.” Sirius rambled out and dropped the book to her side, hitching her hips closer to Remus and reaching down to pressed their fingers together against her. Remus leaned up to grab her wrist and pull her into a sitting position, making her crawl up to her and bringing them to kiss. She pushed on her hip until Sirius was positioned so she could get her hand into her underwear and finally give her something of substance.

“That one was better wasn’t it,” Sirius managed, face pinched in pleasure as she shimmied her underwear down her legs and Remus kept touching.

Remus grumbled noncommittally. Sirius hummed in question and they kissed again.

“Big love-crumbs?” Remus said scathingly. Sirius moaned in response and shimmied around to hasten Remus’ jeans down and she dipped her mouth down to lick and suck at her clit. Her ass was still facing Remus where she slipped her fingers in while parting her legs to give her better access. Sirius made pleased noises and splayed her hands across her thighs as she licked and sucked from upside down, pressing her bum up under Remus’ hand.

Remus’ eyes caught on the E. E. Cummings book laying at the corner of the bed. Her eyes made a sort of aborted roll and she grabbed her ass and leaned down to kiss and lick as well as she could. Sirius loved that.

“I bought a strap on.” Remus spit it out because there really didn’t seem to be any better time to her to say that than with Sirius’ mouth on her cunt. Genius, really.

Sirius put the breaks on absolutely everything. She lifted her head and looked back at her,  a wide eyed look on her heart – breaking – gorgeous face. The breath hushed out her comically, blowing a strand of hair that had fallen into her face. Remus stared back at her without an expression, hands still on her thighs.

“What?” Sirius choked out. Remus raised a brow slowly and shrugged a shoulder.

“Well where on earth is it, for fucks sake Moony!” Remus blinked rapidly and her face sort of stuttered, “Moony!” Sirius laughed, mouth still wet and hand gesturing where it lay on her thigh.

“I – We can’t use it now, we have to go to the Potter’s in, like, twenty minutes!”

“Surely they can wait, Merlin’s pants, god, Moony!” She exclaimed, face contorted.

“No, no, we’re not doing – we’re not using it until we have time to do it properly.” Remus said more firmly.

Sirius leaped upright and lay across her, kissing and snaking her hand back in between her legs. Remus grumbled into her mouth and pressed up into her hand.

“It’s the new moon, you know.” Sirius grinned, kissing her cheek and the corner of her mouth. Remus tipped her head back and Sirius lapped at her neck.

“Yes, Pads, I know.” Remus groaned.

“E. E. _Cummings_.” Sirius giggled into her neck and Remus groaned and moaned at her. She let one hand fumble at that dark, silky hair.

When they arrived at the Potter’s, James gave Remus a smirk. Remus shook her head.

That night Sirius gave Remus no rest, midnight had rolled into them before they finally lay spent. Remus watched her face. Traced the lines. She didn’t typically tell Sirius how captivating she was. Maybe it was a product of growing up together. Thirteen year old Remus could never have imagined the grip Sirius’ good looks would have on her. But throw in a thorough emotional attachment to her and a solid basement of friendship, her beauty was arresting at this point.

“Somewhere I have never traveled, gladly beyond any experience, your eyes have their silence.” Sirius murmured. Remus lay where she lay, a few inches of distance between their bodies. “In your most frail gesture are things which enclose me.”

Remus watched her lips move. She was reading tonight like she did when she really loved a poem. Like she couldn’t hear herself speaking, only seeing the words on the page while Remus tried to stand up under the plain speak of her voice, laying out explanations to all mystery.

“Though I have closed myself as fingers, you open always, petal by petal, myself as Spring opens – touching, skillfully, mysteriously – her first rose.”

“Or if your wish be to close me, I and my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly, as when the heart of this flower imagines the snow carefully, everywhere, descending.”

 _Nothing on this earth could close you should you not want to close,_ Remus thought.

“Nothing that we are to perceive in this world equals the power of your intense fragility,” Sirius said. Remus’ brow furrowed and her eyes fed on Sirius’ face peacefully. She was looking like on the face of a sculpture. Sirius was hard as stone, carved like the angel freed from marble. Remus thought for a moment, this is the long lost face of Nike. Sirius could face so much ugliness in this world and winged victory seemed to come where she flew. Fools rush in where she fears to tread.

Remus knew, logically, somewhere that Sirius was a child just as herself. She was bendable. Human. But sometimes it seemed impossible. That’s love, as it was.

“Whose texture compels me with the colors of its countries, rendering death and forever with each breathing.” Remus felt the distance between their bodies. She thought she might see Sirius’ point about this Cummings fellow.

 _(i do not know what it is about you that closes and opens;only something in me understands_  
_the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)_  
_nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I recently finished a book of collected poems from EECummings. So I thought I'd just work this one out! I know this isn't great, but I guess you gotta do it until it gets better. Practice makes better.


	10. To My Son

 

Remus leaned against the railing on the porch at Godric’s Hollow. She smoked a cigarette, sighing out the smoke and all the tension in her shoulders. God it felt good. She wasn’t a regular smoker by any means, not as much as Sirius smoked. But when she needed a smoke, there was nothing like it for relaxing.

She rubbed her brow and flicked the ashes off the glowing end. She’d never expected how much work being an activist in an organization for dark creatures would be. She wasn’t being payed much for the hours she did on the clock, and those weren’t the only hours by far that she put in. But the work was rewarding. Another thing she’d not expected. She didn’t want to take the job in the first place because she wanted nothing more than to escape her condition in her professional life. Now she was meeting creatures in person that she’d only ever studied about. She met people and beasts and spirits that functioned at varying levels of wizarding society. Many of them suffered and she saw a mirror to her own life reflected in a mirror image closer than she’d ever seen.

On top of this all, Harry had just been born but weeks ago. He was small and infinitely precious. He seemed to hush a quiet over their little family, even Sirius became still in his presence.

Remus watched the stars overhead. The moon waxed overhead in the east sky. Fleamont and Euphemia had returned home at sunset. They were getting older now. They’d had Jame’s later in life, quite unlike Lilly and James who got an early start at it. The Marauder’s knew it was a sort of pseudo-mistake. They hadn’t expected it but both of them weren’t distraught over the news.

Now that little Harry was here the whole of them were quite taken with him. It may be earlier than they expected but now it was the joy of them all. It wasn’t quite surprising anyway. Jamie had had her heart set on Lilly since the beginning.

The door rattled and Remus glanced over her shoulder to catch James ducking out of the house. She smiled and slung an arm over her back, rubbing genially.

“Enjoying the sweet night air, Moons?” James smiled, kissing the side of her head and settling comfortably against the railing.

“Ah, yes. Soft is the night air.” She grinned crookedly, taking a drag and flicking the ashes over into the side into the grass. “You looking for a break from motherhood so soon?”

“Oh stop it, you shit.” She sniped, bumping their shoulders together roughly. “I came to check on you.”

“Mm,” Remus hummed, taking another drag. She couldn’t say she’d been so relaxed in a while. The cigarette was soothing her and the day had been long. Being at Godric’s Hollow with the girls and Lilly and Harry was leaching the day out of her sore muscles and bones. She sighed the smoke out happily. “Harry asleep?”

“He is.” James smiled with adoration writ in quiet background letters behind her eyes, “Lilly took him off my hands for a moment. Next thing I knew he and Sirius were cuddled up on the couch with the babe. There’s so many hands to hold him I can’t imagine I’ll have too hard a time.”

Remus smiled, “He’ll be spoiled. Won’t settle down unless he’s being held.”

James smiled, “Maybe so.” She rubbed her face, tired in spite of the happy glow about her face. Remus looked at her quietly for a few peaceful moments. She thanked the magical world that the universe favored James and Lilly so. She harbored the passing brief thoughts of a horrible world where these happy weeks in some other world may have been haunted by the basest of fear. She smiled and the breeze rustled the leaves of the trees in the yard and cooled her face.

“How is your work going these days?” James asked, “I feel I never get to have time with you anymore, with the baby. I’ve been a little bit put out about missing the moons, honestly.”

“Work has been good, actually.” Remus nodded, watching the embers threaten the filter on her cigarette. “I spoke with a vampire yesterday and learned a lot. Today I visited a werewolf who’s trying to keep guardianship of his younger sister.”

James’ brow furrowed in interest, “Are they orphaned?”

“Been on their own for a few years now but the father’s finally died so the ministry came looking for the little girl. There’s no one but the orphanages to take her if the son loses custody of her.”

“Hm,” James frowned, “What does he do with her on the moons?”

“A neighbor watches over her for the night.” Remus murmured, her eyes darkening. “They’ve got no money as it is. I’m not sure myself if the girl wouldn’t be better off in an orphanage, as bad as they can be.”

She glanced up at James who gazed over the darkened yard in thought.

“No one is ever better off being separated from the ones who love them most.” James said with steady conviction. “I’d say family but I think Sirius is tremendously better off without hers.” She huffed with sour humor.

“You suppose?” Remus mumbled, but she already felt led along by James’ certainty. Like they were eleven years old again and James had gotten them into their first thrilling childish foolishness.

“I do.” James smiled and threw an arm over her back to sway her gently with another rubbing.

“Being loved will do a lot more for the girl than having a steady house. As long as she’s getting fed and educated. Isn’t she?”

“For now.” Remus huffed out a sigh, nodding. “The brother is devoted to her.”

“I can imagine. It can’t be any easier trying to take care of a child, for him.” James blinked over at her. “Do you think they’ll let him keep her?”

Remus pursed her lips, thinking for a while even though she knew already what she expected from the case. She took the last drag she could muster out of the sweet cigarette and watched it start to eat at the filter. James for all of her undying and infallible courage in the face of struggle still faced the music and asked the unattractive questions.

“I can’t imagine they will.” She looked over to her. “The ministry files werewolves into both the ‘being’ and the ‘beast’ divisions of the Department for Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. The lawyer we appointed is hoping to make a case under the policies in the ‘being’ division but… I think the best we could hope for is weekend visitations and such. The ministry just isn’t going to leave an orphaned child to the guardianship of a werewolf. It’s like leaving her to no one at all as far as the policy is concerned. But… who knows. This lawyer’s a gift horse, really. She’s practically doing it for free.”

“Hm.” James shook her head subtly, frowning at the moon. “He’ll have to visit her every chance. She can’t be abandoned to the system.”

Remus nodded, lamenting her vanished cigarette and watching it simmer down.

“What’s it like for you? Meeting so many werewolves?” James asked.

“It’s strange.” Remus shrugged. “I have a lot of sympathy for them. It’s like… Part of me isn’t sure the girl should even stay with him. He’s out of commission every moon. And employment is… I mean he can’t guarantee he can provide for her. But on the other hand I just can’t help but hope… For him and for her – you know.”

“I know.” James hummed. The quiet lulled.

“Maybe I get it a little better now.” She murmured, her lips twitching for a weak smile and falling. “How you guys see me. You know, not like – not exactly the same. But just… with empathy.”

James frowned at her for a moment. “We see you exactly how we see each other, you know. Just like how I see Pads and Wormy. You’re my sister.” She bumped their shoulders.

Remus took a deep breath and sighed it out. She didn’t look up but nodded quietly.

Eventually she straightened up and stretched with a creak, crushing the cigarette against the rail and dropping it into the ash cup. “We should get inside, shouldn’t we.”

They made their way in, Remus holding the door for James and making quips about pregnancy making her an invalid. Inside they found Sirius on the couch with Harry bedded in the cradle of her arms, breathing so quietly in his sleep. Lilly sat hemmed against Sirius’ sighed, an arm around the back of the couch. Their heads bent together over him. Remus hung back and stirred tea in the kitchen as she watched on. James leaned over the back of the couch and kissed Lilly’s red hair, whispering to the both of them quietly. Lilly raised off the couch and they wandered off into their bathroom together.

Remus set her tea on the coffee table in front of the couch and leaned over Sirius and Harry. She looked at Harry’s sleeping face for her own few seconds. She’d held Harry three times so far in this week and a half since he’d been born. She was privately hoping she’d lose count eventually.

“You still awake over here?” Remus rasped to Sirius. Sirius lifted her face to smile at her, blinking her fog grey eyes.

“Mm, you smell like a smoke.” She sighed wistfully. Remus huffed and lifted a gentle hand to tuck a curtain of black hair behind her ear. She made her way to settle into the other end of the couch and just as soon felt sleep weighing over her. She’d always fallen asleep easily, it seemed, since she’d been bitten, and slept hard.

Nestled in the cushions, Sirius looked down at Harry and the other side of her hair fell forward to hang over his cocoon of blankets.

Remus must have been slipping into unconsciousness as she watched them both, lulled to sleep by the house full to the brim with family.

She drifted in and out as Sirius whispered just so quietly to the sleeping bundle.

“I will not say, this is the way, walk in it.” She breathed, a susurrus. “For I do not know your way or where the Spirit may call you.”

“It may be to paths I have never trod or ships on the sea leading to unimagined lands afar. Or haply to a star. Or yet again, through dark and perilous places racked with pain and full of fear.  Your road may lead you far away from me or near. I cannot guess or guide but only stand aside. Just this I say,” She hushed. Remus caught glimpses of her profile in the dim light of the sitting room as she drifted out. She had such a good knack for memorization.

_I know for every truth there is a way for each to walk, a right for each to choose, a truth to use. And though you wander far, your soul will know that true path when you find it. Therefore go. I will fear nothing for you day or night. I will not grieve at all because your light is called by some new name. Truth is the same. It matters nothing to call it star or sun. All light is one._


	11. On Love

_NOW_

 

Remus couldn’t have said her life was ever normal. But through the furry problem and the being an actual wizard, she hadn’t expected the most abnormal part of her life to be her friends.

She closed the door to the flat behind her, blinking at the blast of music that assaulted her ears.

_Through space and time, always another show…_

 She would have found this fairly normal if it had been The Ramones or Queen or the Harpies. But it was no such thing.

  _Wondering where I am, lost without you… Being apart ain’t easy on this love affair! Two strangers learn to fall in love again!_

With a furrow in her brow she shuffled down the hall to the kitchen, the source of the screaming noise. She peeked around the threshold.

Her brow smoothed out and her mouth opened in disbelief. Sirius stood in the kitchen with a spoon in her hand, just a bit of food mess on her shirt. She used the spoon like a mic and sang to little Harry who smiled and clapped completely entertained. He was sat on the counter in front of her, _surely that can’t be safe._

“ _Oh girl, you stand by me. I’m forever yours, faithfully.”_ Sirius sang, throwing her arm out and posing with all the ferocity that she did when she mimicked Freddie Mercury.

The radio on the counter boomed and Harry clapped and giggled, _yay!_ Sirius set the spoon on the counter and hoisted the boy into her arms, wrapping him up against her front and swaying him to the music, jostling him to make him squeal with laughter.

 _“Faithfully!”_ She dipped him back and his face was red with delight, his wild hair flopping back, laughing. “ _Faithfully! I’m still yours!”_ She jostled him around and he screamed along as she sang. The song rang out robust last notes and Sirius twirled Harry around. She had her back turned when Harry finally caught sight of Remus leaned on the door jam from over Sirius’ shoulder.

“Moony!” He screamed missing a tooth and bright faced as could be. Sirius jumped and whipped around, alarmed expression melting into charming and amused bashfullness at being caught.

“What on earth have I just seen?” Remus smiled lightly, quirking a brow and stayed leaned against the door with her arms crossed.

“Moon!” Harry raised his arms for her, kicking his legs. Sirius walked to her and Remus opened her arms to take him as he settled on her hip, propped on her arm.

“I didn’t know you were coming home so soon.” Sirius blurted, brushing her hair from her face and shifting awkwardly, blinking away from her gaze and looking back to Harry.

“Remus!” Harry babbled, jumping in her arms and patting her face. Sirius turned from them and started back to the cluttered counter. Remus took his hand in hers and smiled softly at him.

“Yes, darling, hello.” She kissed his hand and ran her hand through his wild hair. “I see you’re having fun, hm.”

“Yes.” Harry responded neatly, hooking his arms around her neck.

“Just so we’re clear, that _was_ Journey, wasn’t it?” Remus smirked at Sirius. She looked over her shoulder, rolling her eyes.

“It’s just one song!” She griped.

“Mm,” Remus murmured, it usually riled her up. Sirius didn’t rise to the bait. Remus could see her treading gently, still, over the thin ice between them. Harry babbled in her ear.

“What are we doing here, Little Prongs.” Remus asked, approaching the counter. Sirius glance at her briefly, cutting tomatoes.

“We’re doing lunch.” She murmured and Remus picked up a piece of cheese that Harry reached for. “James is at the office, Lilly is on errands.”

“Mm.” Remus murmured, leaning over to the pot of soup on the stove. “Looks lovely.”

“There’s plenty for everyone.” Sirius hummed.

“Thank you.” Remus let Harry down to the floor, “I’m going to change.”

After James and Lilly dropped by to pick up Harry, they ended up in the bedroom getting ready for bed. Sirius lay on the bed, on her side, leaning against the headboard and looking as if she’s not paying attention to Remus’ every movement through the room even though Remus can feel it anyway. Even if it’s only half of her attention.

“How was your day?” Sirius murmured gently. Remus rubbed the small of her back, one hand on top of the dresser.

“Was good.” Remus nodded, closing her eyes and rubbing at the sore spot. This is mostly for comfort and not solution. The body aches go away after resting and not much else. It wasn’t too bad. Just near the end of the day, near the end of the month. “Was good. You?”

“Fine.” Sirius nodded. She’s not good in making up talk she doesn’t mean and not in lying, either.

“How was Harry today?” She asked, leaving the sore spot and opening the dresser to take out a shirt.

“He’s learning to read his stories for himself now,” her voice perked up. “He’s getting through The Tale’s of Beedle The Bard already. I know everyone says it but he’s terribly bright for his age.”

Remus smiled at the self-assured pride in her voice. She’d call Harry any number of exaggerations knowingly.

“He’s very bright.” Remus murmured quietly.

“Did your mum read muggle stories to you when you were little?” Sirius asked, a curious furrow in her brow when Remus glanced at her.

“Yeah, she did.” Remus kicked her pants off and began to fold them neatly. “Yeah. Dr. Seuss was a big one.”

“Dr. Seuss? Do you think we should read that to Harry?” Sirius asked.

“Sure.” Remus laughed under her breath, “I’m sure he’d like them.”

Sirius fell quiet prematurely and Remus let it be. They were doing better now. Sharing a flat again and talking civilly again. She tugged her shirt off, just a bit stiff to the coming moon. She folded her shirt and put it away. Unhooked her bra and let it fall off easily to put in the drawer. She could feel eyes on her back and the cold water between them. She knew if Sirius pushed she’d cave. She wasn’t sure she minded. She didn’t think Sirius could learn a lesson that didn’t come naturally to her, even if she _tried_ anyway, so what does it matter.

She pulled her thin white cotton tee shirt on and sat on the edge of the bed to tug off her socks. She rubbed her feet and listened while Sirius flipped the pages on a newspaper and left the quiet between them. That careful quiet Sirius takes up in the rarest of times when she thinks she’s being good by not speaking.

Remus could see the fearful worry in her eyes that flickered in them when she didn’t know Remus was looking. The falling out they’d had in high school had been nothing near as tame as this falling out had been, though it be about the same damn thing.

Then, James had been the one with a human brain when the incident occurred. She’d told her, later on, that they’d hurried out of the tunnel and burst into the grounds. Snape had left them then, escaping back to Hogwarts. James told her that she and Sirius had had it out there, and Sirius hadn’t had anything to say at the time. Remus had a fairly clear image of the shock on her face, speechless through James’ screaming. James had gone to Severus later and asked that the secret be kept. It was that or go to Dumbledore and James wouldn’t put Remus at risk unless there was no other choice. Of course, he’d ended up keeping the secret. Out of debt for his life being saved. From Remus.

Later on, Remus didn’t speak a word to Sirius. The silence lasted for months and the distance lasted until they parted for summer. All through Remus’ incandescent rage and her hatred at the betrayal and hatred at herself, Sirius’ eyes were hollow with starvation. The rejection was hard on her heart, not helped for some time by James’ support, for her own anger at Sirius. For some time, though she felt so guilty, what showed on her face was a streak a mile wide of self-preservation that sparked a panic-terror at the loss of her friends. They were all she had and Remus could still remember that specific look she’d carried for weeks after. The silence, the stoney flat hardness in her eyes over top the desperation, the instinct to save herself from being cast out ever again. Not from this family.

This time, at least they’d avoided that. The mistake had been horrific but it hadn’t been a betrayal. Remus is disturbed that that is the bottom line.  

Remus crawled into bed and sighed deeply, she clicked the light off when Sirius abandoned the paper.

Quiet minutes passed and Sirius reached across the space between them to rest on her ribs.

“Do you want me to give you a back rub?” She whispered. Remus almost snorted, exhaling instead.

“I’m sure I’m fine.” Sirius’ finger twitched as if they thought about retracting to safety.

Remus took a moment to consider and threw in the towel fairly quick. She rested her own hand on top of Sirius’, giving it the way to stay. She could probably feel Sirius’ body unclench.

“It’s fine, Pads.” Remus mumbled, squeezing her hand. Never one for half measures, Sirius rose onto her elbow and leaned over her, kissing around her ear tentatively.

Remus sighed. She wasn’t angry anymore anyways. She turned her head just so and Sirius connected their mouths, pausing. She waited for any sign of stopping. Remus felt her melt into her, mouth opening to kiss her more deeply. Her hand splayed out flat on her ribs, just below her breasts. Remus’ pressed down on her hand in agreement.

They kissed and Sirius let go of the last of her uncharacteristic restraint. Remus let her hands regain the holy ground in her black hair, running her fingers through and petting the soft strands. She thought, fuck it, and took off her underwear which Sirius only jumped to copy. Remus pressed them together and sighed at the relief of it, the grace of their bodies soft together. They lay on their sides seamlessly together, Remus finally with that tongue back in her mouth. Their legs slotted together, thighs laced among each other and calves trailing together. Remus could feel that they were wet and they rocked together, rolling hips and squeezing thighs together.

Her hand slid under her shirt and smoothed at her back, clawing and soothing. Sirius sighed into her mouth and moaned softly, letting Remus kiss the warm slope of her neck. Alive and warm but beautiful like a shape from marble. Remus got her hand between her legs and tended to her before Sirius could duck down to give her head. Sirius returned the favor and Remus made sure they finished just like that.

 

_THEN_

_“Tell me what’s going on, Peter.” Sirius demanded. She’d been needling Peter at length now, after Peter’s long absence from their group._

_“I just don’t think it’s a good idea – anymore, I mean – I’ve just been busy with Nathan around these days and I – I’m not sure,” she stuttered. The pale light of Peter’s kitchen was casting a pallor on her blushing skin._

_“If there’s something going on, Peter, you can tell me.” Sirius bit out. Her eyes hunted her for a moment, looking for signs of issue. They had never been as close as Sirius and the other girls but Peter was still one of them. Sirius had defended her from school bullies, trusted her during pranks, laughed at her jokes. Yes there was an inch of cruelty in her towards Peter, she couldn’t stand her spinelessness. But a Marauder is an exception. “If you don’t want to tell me then someone else…”_

_“No! No.” She yelped, hands twisting before her, voice shaky._

_Sirius rolled her eyes, “then what on Earth is going on with you!”_

_“It’s just – it’s – I don’t think Nathan is a good fit for the group.” She blurted out. Sirius gave her a disbelieving look._

_“I’m sorry. Are you fucking serious?”_

_“Well, yes, I just think it best if – “_

_“Has he even met us?” She blinked through her incredulity._

_“I did introduce him, once…” She managed._

_“You must be having me on.” Her patience wore thin in her eyes and voice._

_“I’m not, it’s – it’s true – it’s just, well, for him – he’s not quite alright with… Remus.”_

_Sirius’ face dropped and her voice came like a bare stone._

_“Did you tell him?”_

Sirius grit her teeth and tried to contain the fear and energy that vibrated roughly in her skin. Remus and Lily and James had gathered in the Potter’s living room and Sirius sat on the edge of her seat in the chair beside the couch. Lily had taken a seat, wrapped in his pajamas and a blanket, on the couch. James stood before them both and Remus stood as a statue next to the fireplace. She stared at Sirius with an unreadable look on her face. Sirius glanced at her less and less.

“ _What_ the _fuck_ did you do!” James shouted, hair a mess and glasses shoved on. Sirius looked at her, frozen in place.

It felt for a strange moment like she was in the ornate Number 12 Grimmauld Place. An image of herself at twelve, well groomed, well dressed, sat in an elegant chair at a long dining room table, perfect posture besides the tension in her shoulders. Walburga was baring down on her, crazy in her own rage which only made an appearance behind closed doors. Sirius was too young to start fighting back. She was frozen in her childhood confusion and tension.

Being in this place is not quite the same because she can’t get far enough to harden and draw a wand on James. Even thinking it makes no sense and she’s back to square one.

“ _Sirius_ ,” James snapped, “ _Answer!”_

“I… I told you.” James’ fists clenched so Sirius tried again, “Peter told him.”

She had told James. She’d apparated into her flat because her brain had been on autopilot at the moment and her body had jumped her before she’d even decided where she was going. James asked her what was wrong and she’d said. James called Remus before she’d started asking questions and at this point she knew enough to be in a state.

“Walk me through it.” She said. Lilly looked at Sirius with some kind of apprehension.

“I…”

“Peter told you that she told him about Remus, then what happened.”

“We argued.” Sirius answered. It was easier this way. As if following James was easy even when she was leading her to her own confession.

“And then what.”

_“He’s just against them! He’s a – a purist!”_

“I put my wand at her.” Sirius’ hands clenched the tops of her legs.

“And then what.”

_Peter’s hand twitched as if thinking about running after her wand which lay far behind Sirius on the kitchen counter. “Don’t move.”_

“I asked her where he was.” James blinked her eyes shut for a moment.

“What did she say?”

_“No!” She cried, eyes watering pathetically. Sirius kept a perfectly still arm even as her body burned. The sight of Peter’s wavering tears drove Sirius on like the scent of blood to a hound, as if they spurred her on. She’d always felt a little impatient with Peter’s cowardice. “You tell me or I’ll tell me for you.”_

“She told me his address.”

“Jesus Christ.” James whispered. She put a hand on her hip and rubbed her forehead. “Did you leave then?”

_“Petrificus totalus.”_

“Yes.” Sirius spoke, voice plane though tense.

“What happened then.”

Sirius had moved so fast. Auror training had been like training for how to do this instead. She’d apparated, cast disillusionment charms so effective she could have hidden from Moody. She’d pushed a coffee mug off the kitchen counter onto the floor. He’d come to investigate and she’d obliviated him from behind his back, searched through his memories and drew out the secret until he couldn’t possibly remember it. It was difficult. Peter had told him long enough ago that Sirius had to search until it was gone. She was careless with it. Memory alteration is so tricky there’s a department dedicated to people licensed to perform it on muggles. Once a memory is created, a person will refer to it over time and use it in making new memories. Removing it can affect multitudes of memories made since. The magical theory of it is complicated.

“I obliviated him.” She blurted out. She didn’t look at anyone but James. She couldn’t make herself suffer the dread on Lilly’s face or whatever would come from Remus.

“Sirius…” James whispered. “Shit.”

They were all too quiet. James looked at Lilly and shook her head like she didn’t know what to do.

“That’s a pretty big criminal charge.” Lilly murmured to Sirius. Sirius hated the feeling of her palms sweating against her jeans through the discomfort of it all. They were quiet.

“Why did you feel the need… to do that.” James asked.

“He’s a purist.” Her voice was halting, her shoulder drew up in a tense shrug. It seemed so simple at the time. Purism was a threat to Remus’ existence.

“That can’t be all.” James heaved out a breath, shutting her eyes in frustration.

“I couldn’t… let a blood purist know what Remus was.” She felt dangerous even saying Remus’ name out loud where she could here it. As if Remus was curse her at the name.

“What would he have done!” James laughed desperately. Sirius felt the words at the back of her throat, writhing with the years of first hand experiences of what a blood purist would do to someone like Remus. There was no guarantee what he would have done. She wasn’t sure. But the visions flashed behind her eyes of what she’d seen. The real and damaging things that her family and other families had done to push people down or kill them, all in discretion. The Blacks were too safe and smart to get their hands dirty. But she’d seen so much.

“I couldn’t.” Sirius managed, her head shaking slightly. It was clear she couldn’t think of anything else to say.

James sighed and ran a hand through her hair. She oscillated, hands on her hips. She looked at Lilly who shook his head and held his tongue. She looked at Remus and Sirius felt a vile nausea in the back of her mouth. Remus looked at James for a few moments and James shrugged and Remus shook her head and looked down.

“Who knows.” James turned around and looked at her.

“Peter.” Sirius said. “Anyone she’d told since.”

“Was there anyone else in the house?” James asked.

“No.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes, sure.”

“I’m gonna go make sure Pete’s okay.” Sirius looked down and would certainly never voice the contempt she felt at the idea. Even now. She wondered how Remus felt know Peter had so easily betrayed her like that.

“Should I come with you?” Lilly asked. James thought but decided against it and asked that he stay with Sirius.

“And you stay here.” James told her. She nodded. James looked at Remus.

“No,” she rasped, “Just go alone.” James nodded and Remus turned with a snap into the void.

 

\--

 

Remus blinked her eyes in the dawn light. Her old bedroom at the Lupin cottage was dusty but still much like she’d left it. The next moon was a week away and she didn’t look forward to trapping the wolf in the cellar and she didn’t look forward to James coming to ask if she could help. At least under these circumstances James might actually take no for an answer.

She got out of bed and to the kitchen downstairs. She made coffee and sat at the kitchen table. It had been more comforting than she’d expected, being home these last weeks. Even the tiny kitchen and the worn wooden table in the middle of it its coffee stains in the wood. She sat there and drank her coffee and watched the garden waver in the morning light. Hope made it downstairs and came to run a hand across her shoulders and press both her hands around Remus’ face so she could lean down and kiss her dusty auburn hair.

“Morning, darling.” She soothed, mothering hand sliding off her shoulder as she turned to make her own morning tea. She sat across from Remus and talked to her quietly. Remus was surprised how much she’d enjoyed home. She’d always been so in love with Hogwarts, the chance she’d never thought she’d get. She’d always been so at home with her friends. And she’d had an entire childhood of watching her parents suffer for their child. Remus was as terrified as they were at five years old, every month. She’d been so shell shocked for months and then started screaming and crying about it every time the moon would roll around. Her parents had been so powerful in controlling their emotions in order to help Remus. In order to control a six, seven year old werewolf who didn’t want to go to the shed because she could barely understand the difference between the dark shed and her own transformation. She’d been difficult at first. Then somewhere around eight years old she’d normalized it. That made it easier for her parents.

But even now, looking across the kitchen table at her beautiful mother she could remember. She could look at her kind, earthly, aged, humbly pretty face that reflected her own, and remember the strain she had seen in her as a child. The toll her condition had taken on her parents. As if they were torturing her themselves.

Remus smiled at her softly, nodded as Hope spoke. In the late morning Lyall shuffled down and made coffee. He was quiet at the kitchen table while they talked. He read the paper and frowned as he naturally did when reading, wearing his readers. He looked much like Remus did, without scars. He was bigger and hardier than she’d grown to be, the wolf kept her lean and wiry, she thought. Only so much you could ask of a body that had to remake itself each month.

Lyall and Remus both had the day off work, Hope was going to the grocery store.

“Perhaps you should help your father with gnoming the garden?” She hummed in that conspicuous but comfortably bossy way mothers could be.

And that’s where Remus was, dirt up to her elbows in the garden and grass stains on her knees. She could wear jean shorts at home comfortably. Lyall didn’t like reminding of her condition but he was so used to the scarred legs anyways. Most of Remus’ scars where in places where the wolf could easily reach to punish them when it was angry at the imprisonment.

They worked without conversation for an hour or so. Throwing gnomes and pests from the garden in the cool fall sunshine. Afterwards a break to smoke a cigarette and drink tea in the garden.

She told Lyall that Sirius had done something bad because of her. He rumbled a low hum in response, nodding his head and blowing out smoke. He set his tea down on the little metal table between them.

“How bad?” Lyall asked, look at her. His arm rested on the table next to the tea. Her father’s arms. He’d never held her as much as Hope. But she could remember when he would.

“Pretty bad.” Remus murmured lowly, looking down. “Criminally so.”

“Mm.” Lyall frowned and took a sip. “You’d better not tell me what she’s done, s’pose.”

“Suppose not.” Remus huffed, smiling. She took a last drag and flicked the cigarette out, tossing it in a little bucket under the table with the other old butts. Lyall had stopped working in the Creatures department some years ago. He’d moved to an administrative branch of the Auror division.

“You going to get into trouble?” He asked after a while. Remus thought about that.

“Well… I’d think not. I didn’t do anything. But of course, I don’t know.” Remus shrugged. “I don’t think so.”

 _Mm,_ he grumbled. She had a sudden urge to splurge her thoughts to him. To tell him everything that had happened, the emotions she could barely contain about it, the absolute mess of it all. She couldn’t remember ever wanting to confess so much to anyone else before. She looked at him slouched in his chair, rugged in the way older men are, the same light brown eyes as her. She didn’t say anything. She couldn’t say anything to him. It didn’t make sense that she’d even wanted to. He’d never spoken to her about their emotions, Hope had. She’d always ask, smoothing her hand on her forehead, _how are you doing, Remus._ Lyall wouldn’t even speak about it. He’d done his fair share to help Hope manage her, but he’d never spoken.

Her parents loved each other as partners in life do. There’s was a sensible, hardy companionship that had solidified under the pressure of Remus’ condition. Her lycanthropy had been Lyall’s fault and it in itself was enough to tear their marriage apart. But Hope wouldn’t abandon Remus and it became a question of whether Lyall would leave her to support herself and her five year old daughter alone. Surely he’d wanted to. But for reasons known only to the people there in those private moments in the sixties, he had never abandoned her. And then their marriage became a partnership solidified under the common goal of surviving the prospect of raising her.

She’d never really wanted to talk to her father. There had always been an unexplored sense that he was disgusted with her condition.

At the end of the day she just wished her parents hadn’t suffered the way she’d seen them do.

So, “Dad… I’m sorry.”

He didn’t look over at her and his mouth pursed. She watched quietly, his twinging jaw, his chin flat with the pursing of his lower lip.

“You got nothing to be sorry for.” They were quiet and his cigarette burned down for several moments untouched. He stared hard at the garden through the gentle breeze, the trees in the distance. “I’m sorry… for what happened.”

Remus looked away from him because it seemed such a great effort for him to speak, much less be watched.

Lyall sipped his drink after a while and Remus felt that was that and she could relax.

“You’ve done good.” Lyall said again after some time. “In school. And making friends. It’s good.”

She nodded and he glanced at her with those weathered eyes and nodded sparsely in response. He crushed out his cigarette.

“And you and Sirius are… your mother says you’re… together.” He managed, waving his broad hand where it rested on the table. Remus raised her brows and nodded, “yeah, we are.”

She would have gotten over her surprise had he not gone on to growl on, “You know that I don’t mind that, don’t you.”

Remus looked at him with her poorly disguised surprise and he glanced at her a few times and back over the heather of the garden.

 _No, I hadn’t the fuzziest that you were quite aware of Sirius and I or that you don’t mind that._ “I know.” She nodded, brows still raised a bit and an approving frown on her lips as she nodded and looked at the garden.

“I don’t mind.” He grunted, swatting with his hand again, “I don’t understand all that but I don’t mind.”

“Well, thank you.” Remus hummed.

“I just want you to be careful.” He said quietly, “You’ve got enough with the… lycanthropy. You don’t need anything else making things harder.”

She nodded. She certainly wasn’t entreated to telling people about it anyways.

“I understand.” She murmured.

“Good.” He grunted and that was that.

And then, “a friend from work’s got a lake sprite infestation, needs tending,” and they went together because she’s quite good at defensive magic.

 

_NOW_

 

Sirius played _Hounds of Love_ for quite a while. Every once in a while she’d put on _The Kick Inside_ and Remus would hear it echoing through the house and remind her of Hogwarts.

Seated on the couch she’d know just how Sirius would respond to each song. Sometimes she’d hum or nod her head and sometimes she’d tap her foot. Even today, nothing was different because when _Wuthering Heights_ played she’d never know what Sirius would do. Whether a theatrical performance with dramatic hands and eyes, laying on the floor and closing her eyes, dancing, or singing along.

Sirius had read Wuthering Heights because of this song. She always wanted an excuse to read muggle books. She came in from the kitchen and tugged on Remus’ arm until she’d stand and let her pull her around the living room in a meandering, pathless dance. She had perfect form and no desire to dance properly.

Remus laughed and Sirius held her hand in the air next to them, her hand around Remus’ waist. Remus let her hand be placed on her shoulder and couldn’t help the laugh that bubbled out of her when Sirius swung them around and sung like a dog howling on the Yorkshire moors along with Kate Bush.

She danced along with her. By the second chorus Sirius leaned their heads together and lowered their hands, squeezing her palm. Her hand slid around to wrap her arm more warmly around her waist. Remus leaned their bodies together listening as Kate sang. She liked this song too. She could see the dark moors and the two kids running and playing, wild as anything, _half savage and hardy and free._

“I like this song.” Sirius murmured and let go her hand so she could put her hand against Remus’ neck. Remus smiled, letting her hands fall to rest on her sides. “I know you do.”

Sirius hummed along and swayed, and Remus closed her eyes listed along.

_Oh, let me have it, let me grab your soul away._

Sirius wrapped both her arms around Remus’ neck and pressed a kiss into her mouth. Remus sighed to the guitar and kissed her back.

After dinner at night Sirius read her Kahlil Gibran. They hadn’t been reading to each other in a long time. Busy with so many things. Sirius had bought her this book for Christmas.

“Then said Almitra, Speak to us of Love.” She murmured, “And he raised his head and looked up on the people, and there fell a stillness upon them. And with a great voice he said: When love beckons to you, follow him, though his ways are hard and steep. And when his wings enfold you yield to him, though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you. And when he speaks to you believe in him, though his voice may shatter your dreams as the north wind lays waste to the garden.”

Sirius interrupted herself, “Quite fucked that they call love a he isn’t it?”

Remus laughed, “quite.”

“I mean not to be difficult, I just mean there really isn’t anything of the _he_ sort between us is there?”

Remus laughed again.

_For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning. Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun, so shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You ever create and you’re like hm.... no.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is a celebration of good poetry so if you have some please feel free to share!  
> Thanks for reading! xx


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